Aftershocks
by MsBarrows
Summary: Events in Kirkwall from shortly after Hawke's departure.
1. Chapter 1

Cullen would not had recognized the man, were it not for the particularly bright blue of his eyes. He was seated on a broken block of stone to one side of the rubble-filled square, wearing just leggings and boots, and so coated with stone dust as to seem stone himself, until he blinked. Cullen stared, then picked his way across the rubble toward him. "Brother Sebastian?" he called, stopping a few paces away, studying the man's face. A face empty of any visible emotion, somewhere beyond grief.

Blue eyes turned and met his. Blinked. The expression did not change, apart from a slightly cracking of the dust at corners of mouth and eyes. Empty eyes; tormented eyes. Eyes that had seen too much. A look Cullen was familiar with, there having been a time when it was the look in his own eyes, the look he avoided in the mirror every morning, learning in the end to shave without one so as not to see what looked back at him out of his own eyes.

"Sebastian," he said again, quietly and moved a step closer.

Sebastian drew a slow, deep breath. "Hawke?" he rasped out, of a throat raw from screaming, closed from crying, dry from rock dust breathed in while sifting through rubble in search of any survivors. Though those had been few, as the blanket-draped row of bodies along one side of the square attested.

"Gone," Cullen told him. "She took the mage with her."

Sebastian nodded, and turned away, gaze returning to the pile of rubble. Though not his attention; it was not the rubble he saw, his eyes were focused on something only he could see. Memory, perhaps. "It doesn't matter," he said, voice flat.

"It should," Cullen said softly, and bit his lower lip. He had things he should be doing... and yet he hated the thought of just walking away, of leaving the man sitting there like that. "Is there somewhere you can go? Somewhere I can take you?"

A long silence. Then, "Yes," Sebastian said, and rose to his feet, only to almost collapse to the ground, Cullen just managing to catch him in time to prevent him from falling. He'd pushed himself too far, the templar could see – pushed himself beyond the point where anyone sane would have stopped, and rested. Pushed himself close to a physical breakdown, perhaps not even realizing how much he was wearing himself out. Pushed himself, because it was easier to push than to stop.

That, too, was something Cullen remembered. Cleaning the halls and classrooms and dormitories had been better than the dreams; a waking nightmare preferable to what might ambush him while he slept. At least when he was awake he knew what was _real_. More than once Greagoir had had to order him to rest, though even orders couldn't make him sleep for more than an hour or two at a time before the nightmares and fear drove him back out of his room, back to work, sometimes at least half-asleep as he worked his way through rooms on his hands and knees, scrubbing the floors spotless – though no amount of scrubbing could remove the memory of what they'd been stained with – and yet unable to stop and rest.

"Where should I take you?" Cullen asked quietly, holding him upright. "You know the guard-captain, don't you? She stayed... and that dwarf..."

"No, there's a closer place," Sebastian rasped out, gesturing vaguely with one hand.

He could walk, but only slowly, in a hobbling, bone-deep soreness sort of way. Cullen supported him, one arm around his waist, while the man directed him through the streets of Hightown, his voice increasingly thick with exhaustion, until they stopped in front of a dilapidated ruin of a mansion, most of the windows missing glass, the exterior overgrown with vines, garden beds choked with weeds.

"Here!?" Cullen asked, unsure if this was where Sebastian had really meant to go.

"Yeah... Fenris' place," Sebastian slurred out in explanation, head drooping tiredly.

"He's left too," Cullen told him, wondering what friendship had existed between the pair for the man to have had him bring him here, of all places.

Sebastian managed a shrug. "He won't mind if I stay," he said.

Cullen stared at the house, and then at the man, so visibly flagging even as they stood there, and then came to a decision. The elf had lived here, so surely there must be food inside, a bed, _something_. He tried the door – unlocked – and helped Sebastian inside, grimacing as his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior, and saw the state the place was in. "He lived _here!?_"

A weak laugh. "He wasn't much of one for housecleaning. Upstairs," Sebastian directed.

Cullen helped him, thinking he might have to carry him the last little way, but Sebastian was a stubborn one, labouring to lift each foot in turn, step after step all the way up the broad staircase to the top, gesturing vaguely at the one open door to make clear which room was usable. Though only barely, Cullen saw as he helped him through the door, taking in the holes in the roof, the smoke-stained mantel, the unwashed plates and mugs and empty wine bottles scattered about the room. The bed was pushed in a corner, the bedding coiled into a messy nest. Sebastian straightened and staggered the last few steps on his own, dropping onto the bed and making only a token effort at making himself comfortable before he was, between one breath and the next, soundly asleep.

There are things he needed to do, yet Cullen stayed for a long moment, looking down at the sleeping man. There were things that he needed to do... but he would, he decided, return later, to make sure that Sebastian was all right.

* * *

Smell woke him. Smell, and sound; the smell of sausages frying, and the sound of water being poured into a tin tub. He wasn't sure where he was for a moment, then drew in a breath and smelled the familiar mix of mildew and must, leather conditioner and weapon oil, and faint underlying somewhat stale musky male odour, that said _Fenris_ to his senses. He relaxed, for all of one heartbeat, until he remembered where he was, and why, and drew in one sudden breath, on the edge of crying out from the pain of it all. And choked on dust, starting a coughing fit.

"Brother Sebastian?" a familiar voice called from somewhere nearby. Cullen, he realized after a moment of panicked thought, and remembered being helped across Hightown by the man.

He tried to respond, but could only manage wheezing sounds in between racking coughs. He tasted dust and blood. Stone dust, he remembered, and choked again, for a moment unable to breathe at all.

Cullen muttered a curse, and then an arm went around Sebastian's shoulders, helping him to sit up, a hand thumping him roughly on the back until he managed a single gasping breath. A cup was held to his lips. Tea, cooling and brewed black as tar, but it cut through the dust, and he managed another breath, a deep, shuddering one, holding back the grief that wanted to escape. "Thank you," he managed to say, once his breathing had steadied.

"There's food cooking," Cullen said as he rose and stepped back from the bed, setting the cup down on the windowsill nearby. "And I've warmed water for a bath," he added, looking uncertain.

Sebastian stared at him, then over at the fireplace, where Fenris' tin tub stood near the fire. "Thank you," he said again, surprised. Astonished, even. Puzzled, too, though when he looked down and saw how thickly coated he was with dust, he understood why Cullen might have thought a bath was a priority. He tried to move, and hissed in pain as every muscle and what felt like half his bones protested. "I think I may need your help getting up," he said hesitantly, then grimaced. "And help into the tub as well, I fear."

Cullen nodded, and helped pull him to his feet, steadying him until he'd found his balance, and giving him a support to lean on as he hobbled over to the tub. He noticed that his feet were bare, his boots neatly placed together by the foot of the bed, and guessed that Cullen must have taken them off for him, as he certainly hadn't done it himself. He couldn't remember what he'd done with the rest of his armour, beyond taking it off so he could more easily dig through the rubble... he cut off that line of thought, not wanting to remember that. Not yet, anyway. Later, perhaps.

Cullen did his best to avert his eyes as he helped Sebastian out of his leggings and smalls, and then into the tub. The water wasn't very warm – barely more than tepid – and quickly turned milky from all the stone dust. Cullen had an extra bucket of water waiting near the fire, and brought it over to pour over him, rinsing off the worst of the dust. Sebastian started to reach for the soap and cloth that the templar had left sitting within reach on the end of one of the benches, then hissed in pain.

"Maker, your hands..." Cullen exclaimed, dropping to one knee to take a closer look at them.

Sebastian's hands were torn and bruised from scrabbling through piles of stone the night before, one fingertip purpling from a bad bruise, the nail bed almost black. Sebastian vaguely remembered what had caused that one – a large block of stone shifting, almost crushing his fingertip between itself and a second, smaller block – but most of the damage was just _there_, the causes not specifically remembered. The stretching motion as he'd reached for the soap had cracked open the scabs that had formed over some of the worst scrapes and gouges, blood welling up to stain his skin.

"Some of those will need salving and bandaging," Cullen said, and reached for the washcloth. "Once they've been cleaned properly first, anyway. This may hurt," he warned, then dipped the cloth in the water and began sponging away the worst of the dirt and dust.

Sebastian sat quietly, feeling self-conscious of the fact that his modesty, such as it was, was being protected only by the high sides of the tin tub and the murkiness of the water surrounding him. But Cullen's touch was gentle, and his attention focused completely on the task he'd taken on, and all in all Sebastian was too tired to protest. Cullen hesitated when he'd finished cleaning Sebastian's hands, then almost matter-of-factly moved on to hurriedly washing the rest of Sebastian, at least all the bits above water, before finally helping him back to his feet and handing him an old sheet to use as a towel. Sebastian quickly draped it around himself, then with Cullen's help stepped out of the tub and took a seat on the bench nearby.

"There should be salve and bandages and thing like that in the chest over there," Sebastian told him, gesturing to where he knew Fenris typically kept such things. And then, after a hesitation of his own, "What happened last night?"

"Too much," Cullen said, as he poked around in the chest, finding not just poultices and salves and bandages, but a voluminous nightshirt that Sebastian recognized as one he'd once given the elf. He wondered if Fenris had ever even used it; by its presence in the chest rather than anywhere near the bed, he guessed not.

While he worked on salving and bandaging Sebastian's hands, Cullen launched into the story of what had happened down at the Gallows, at least as much of it as he'd seen himself, or been told of later by those who had seen. It was a long story; Sebastian's hands were dealt with, and he had been dressed in the nightshirt – even that requiring help – by the time Cullen was done.

The templar wordlessly dished out food for both of them – a fry-up of chunks of sausage, onions and potatoes – while Sebastian considered his tale. "So you're Knight-Commander now?" he finally asked.

"I don't know what I am," Cullen admitted. "I rebelled against my Commander, even if she was..." He stopped, shrugged. "I still think it was the right thing to do, but I doubt the Chantry will see it that way. I doubt I'll still be a Knight-Captain by the time they've done with me. Perhaps not even a templar. Even if they agree with the necessity, which isn't at all certain, they'll be too aware of the insubordination. The mutiny."

Sebastian nodded, and turned his attention to eating, holding his fork made difficult by the bandages.

"And what of you?" Cullen asked. "What are you now?"

Sebastian paused, then put down his fork. "Angry, mostly," he said quietly. "Hawke and I were friends, I thought. And yet it didn't seem to disturb her at all, that Anders destroyed my home, my friends and adopted family; that he might easily have destroyed me as well if chance had not had me down in Lowtown with Hawke instead of up here. But I know that's not what you're asking. And the answer is... I don't know. I have been unsure for some time now, whether to return to my vocation within the chantry, or to travel to Starkhaven and attempt to claim the throne. Both positions of great honour; it is rare that a man rises any higher than a lay brother in the chantry, yet before I became so... conflicted, the Grand-Cleric had spoken of raising me to the priesthood."

"A great honour indeed," Cullen agreed. "She must have thought very well of you, to consider such a step."

"I believe she did. It... disappointed her greatly, I think, when my family was killed, and I lost my direction. And yet she did not try to dictate my choices; she even released me from my vows so that I might travel about and try to gain support to overthrow my cousin. Not that it helped," he added, a touch bitterly. "No one I spoke to was willing to help me, not with men or with money. Either too frightened that whomever had killed my family would treat theirs the same if they interfered, or preferring the rule of my cousin."

"Did you ever find out who was behind it all?" Cullen asked curiously.

"Yes, and they were dealt with, with Hawke's help," he said, and bit his lip, deciding against sharing that story. "The only powers behind my cousin's throne now are any he himself has allowed to replace the woman that put him there."

He picked up his fork again, moved around the food on his plate, stabbed a bit of sausage, then set the fork down again. "I feel even more lost now than when my family was killed," he said softly. "I threatened Hawke, you know... told her if she did not kill Anders for what he had done, that I would reclaim my throne, and return here at the head of an army to do it myself."

"But she's left. And taken Anders with her."

"Aye, and even if she hadn't, I do not think I would do it in any case. I'm not sure I even _could_ do it, even if I'd truly meant the words. My cousin is well-entrenched now, and while he does not rule as my father did, as my brother would have, he... does well enough, from all I have heard. A weak man, perhaps, but not an evil one. It would be wrong of me to depose him just to involve the people of Starkhaven in a war they would otherwise have no involvement in. And, as you say, neither Hawke nor Anders are here in any case."

"So what will you do now?" Cullen asked.

"I do not know. Truthfully, I do not know. I cannot see myself meekly returning to the Chantry, after all that has happened. Nor can I now see any point in returning to Starkhaven. I could, perhaps, dedicate myself to hunting down and killing Anders for what he has done, and yet... I am sure the Chantry will be turning its own resources to such a thing, and its resources are far, far greater than anything I could muster. No matter where he has gone, he is a dead man; it is only a matter of time until his death catches up with him. After what he has done here, there is no where he can go that they will not seek him out, even if it required sending bards to the black tower in Minrathous itself to see justice done."

Cullen nodded silent agreement, staring down at his own half-empty plate. A stray memory crossed Sebastian's thoughts. He frowned, and looked questioningly at the templar.

"You were both from Kinloch Hold, as I recall. Did you know him there?"

"Knew of him, yes, though I wouldn't say I actually knew him. I mostly served elsewhere in the tower than where he was. I only encountered him once or twice, once when he'd just been brought back to the tower after one of his escapes, and again after he'd first been let out of solitary confinement."

"Solitary confinement?" Sebastian said, surprised. "He never mentioned that. I suppose it wasn't for very long then?"

"A year," Cullen said quietly, setting aside his empty plate. "The last time they locked him up, it was for a full year, down in the cells under the tower. I heard rumours... he wasn't left entirely alone, you see. There are always those that abuse their power. There, here... in every tower. I don't think it was ever as bad in Ferelden as some of what I've seen or heard of here, but it wasn't good, either."

"Oh," Sebastian said softly, and swallowed, remembering a time shortly after he'd first joined Hawke's circle of friends, when he'd made overtures of friendship toward the mage, and been very firmly and angrily rejected. _I was one of the lucky ones_, Anders had claimed then. Perhaps that had been a lie, after all. He felt sick. It didn't excuse what the mage had done; nothing could ever do that. But perhaps it at least began to explain _why _he had done it.

"Will you be staying here then? Or going away?" Cullen asked after a while.

"I don't know. Staying, I suppose... I can't think of anywhere to go. Though perhaps it would be better if I left... the memories..."

"Yes," Cullen said said, very softly, a haunted look briefly in his eyes. "The memories."

Sebastian cocked his head to one side. "Is that why you left Ferelden?"

"In part. Greagoir felt it would be better for me to go. He gave me a choice of places; I picked Kirkwall because of what I'd heard of Knight-Commander Meredith. I admired her; her firmness, her resolve, her faith and reason."

"And now?"

"I mourn the commander she was, not the tyrant she ended as. The Knight-Commander I admired when I first came here would never have ordered a circle annulled for the actions of one mage, especially one who was not even part of the circle. She has often been... well, I would say _firm_, though some might say harsh. But I cannot believe that without the influence of this 'red lyrium' that was spoken of that she would have countenanced such a decision. Worse... I have seen evidence that leads me to believe she had sent for the Rite even _before_ Anders' destruction of the chantry. I now believe that she was not entirely sane for some period of time; perhaps even going back years. There are decisions of hers I now question much more strongly than I did before, such as her allowing Hawke's mage companion to remain free."

"Companions," Sebastian said. "There were two; Anders, and a Dalish mage."

"Two? I... I wonder if she knew," Cullen said, sounding shocked.

"I'm not entirely sure she did," Sebastian said. "I find it hard to her imagine allowing the Dalish one to have remained free, had she known of her; the woman was a blood mage."

"A blood mage!" Cullen exclaimed, and gave Sebastian a shocked look, then frowned. "You knew this? Yet did _nothing!?_"

"I considered reporting it to the templars," Sebastian reluctantly admitted. "But I trusted Hawke, and when I'd heard that Anders had spoken out to Meredith in her very office, and she'd made no effort to prevent his leaving afterwards, I... I may have misjudged. I remained silent. I believed that there was no point in reporting them; that Meredith would take no action against them anyway, for whatever reasons of her own."

Cullen sat there lost in thought for a little while, then sighed and shook his head. "The misjudgement was not yours, but Meredith's. For rules to be fair they must be applied evenhandedly, not ignored on a whim or to show preference to someone because of their own personal power. Anders should never have been allowed to run free, no more than Hawke, or this Dalish, or any other apostate."

"So you believe that laws must apply equally to all, then?"

"Yes. In Ferelden, even the King can be held accountable to the law; he must answer to the Landsmeet for his actions. As must the nobles themselves."

Sebastian smiled crookedly. "And has such happened?"

Cullen shrugged. "A time or two. The nobles can and do flaunt the law at times, even the King – or Queen, or Regent – but they do so at their peril. In Ferelden, the nobles may administer the law, but they are not the law themselves, nor are they above it. Not like in Orlais, where the whim of a noble is the law of his lands."

"Interesting," Sebastian said, then sighed. "I am tired. I should rest some more. Thank you for all of your help."

Cullen nodded, and rose to his feet. "Do you need a hand...?"

"I think I can manage," Sebastian said. It took him two tries to rise to his feet, and he hobbled like an arthritic old man, but he made it back to the bed under his own power. "Have you heard... did they find...?"

Cullen looked sombre. "More bodies, yes. Survivors... no. Perhaps in the basements, if anyone was down there. If the arches held."

Sebastian nodded tiredly. "Likely no one, then."

"I would not give up all hope, not yet... sometimes there are survivors, even when you expect to find none. We found a few, after Uldred's rebellion... templars and mages who'd taken shelter in the basements, in locked storage areas and the like, barricading themselves in and waiting it out. And there was me... I survived, even after being in their hands. There might still be people living within the wreckage. Guard-Captain Aveline has organized things, she has people working on clearing the rubble in shifts, working toward the places where there would most likely have been survivors."

"If anyone can find living survivors, I suppose it would be her," Sebastian said.

"There's some talk of making her Viscount," Cullen said after a brief pause. "Despite her being one of Hawke's companions, not because of it. She and her guards saved much of Kirkwall in the aftermath of the explosion; many owe their lives and property to her fast action to end the rioting and restore order."

Sebastian nodded slowly. "She's a very capable woman. I would think she would be an excellent choice."

Cullen nodded agreement. "Well. I should go. I'll stop in again later, to see how you are, if you need anything..."

"Thank you, that is very kind of you," Sebastian said.

Cullen left. Sebastian curled up on the bed, straightening out the sheets somewhat first from the nest Fenris had left them in. He grimaced at the state of the bedding, which had been in need of a wash even before he'd slept on top of it all covered in dust and grime, and bleeding. Not that it was the first time the bedding had been bled on; the elf had never liked submitting himself to Anders' healing ministrations for minor injuries. More than once Sebastian had arrived for a visit to find him lying sprawled on the bed, drinking from a bottle and ignoring the bloody smears some poorly-bandaged wound was leaving on the sheets. It was how he knew where Fenris stored bandages and the like; he'd tended the elf's injuries more than once.

He missed the elf already, he realized. And yet he doubted that, having finally left Kirkwall, Fenris would ever return here again. There wasn't anything here for him, really; once Danarius had been killed, it was only his friendships with Hawke and her companions that had kept him here. Now that most of the others had scattered... well, Sebastian doubted that his friendship alone was enough to draw the elf back. Especially when Fenris had no reason to even know he was still here.

He would miss him; true friendships in his life had been rare.

* * *

Sebastian was able to move more normally when he woke again; still stiff and sore, but no longer feeling half-crippled from overworked muscles, strains, sprains, and bruises. He hobbled around the room, knowing where Fenris liked to cache food, and managed to scrape together a meal, of old hard bread, a link or two of dry smoked sausage, some cheese that, while soft and sweating, was still edible. The tin canister in the cupboard near the table was still more than half full of the good tea he'd brought the elf as a gift some weeks ago, a northern variety, with a somewhat fruit-like flavour to it. He remembered how Fenris' eyes had lit up as he opened the tin and smelled it, and the pleasure with which he'd brewed some for both of them to share, while they sat and talked late into the night.

He found himself missing the elf's presence again. He'd always enjoyed talking with him. Enjoyed looking at him, as well, though he'd never done anything more than look. Just because he'd sworn celibacy didn't mean he was immune to noticing the physical charms of another, and it did no harm for him to quietly enjoy watching the elf. Or of other companions of Hawke's, he thought, and smiled, thinking of Isabela. A pity they hadn't crossed paths in his own wilder days... well, wherever she was now, he wished her well. And Fenris, too. Perhaps the pair of them were even together; Fenris had spoken admiringly of her a time or two, and there'd been certain looks he'd seen the pair exchange a time or two in recent weeks...

He sighed, and made himself a cup of tea, and sat by the guttering fire, trying to decide what to do with his life. Remain here? He entertained a brief fantasy of acquiring this building, repairing it and cleaning it up, _living_ here, not as Fenris had done, a ghost in its halls, but as the owner. But it was only a fantasy; he had no money to buy such a place, much less repair it, and could think of nothing he could do here in Kirkwall to earn enough to do so.

That was another problem, he found himself thinking, and frowned. His home was destroyed, and almost all of his few possessions with it. He had no money of his own, beyond the bit of coin that had been in his belt pouches, and the belt was now gone anyway, along with all the rest of his armour. He had no place to live, apart from squatting here until someone saw fit to kick him out. He had no job, no income... he supposed he could go for a mercenary, if nothing else. Assuming he could find a half-decent bow; his own, like the armour, being gone now.

He was making a mental list of his skills – archery, some basic cookery and very basic sewing, bread-making, reading and writing, mathematics – when he heard the distant sound of the front door opening and closing, and then footsteps on the stairs.

"Cullen?" he called out, and was uneasily aware of the fact that if it wasn't Cullen – if it was someone hostile – he had nothing with which to defend himself.

"Yes," Cullen called back, to his relief, and a moment later stepped through the door of the room. He was not wearing his usual distinctive armour, but simple clothing instead – loose leggings, a shirt made of unevenly dyed cloth with smocked shoulders, leather boots – the sort of plain, rough garb any farmer or drover might wear. He was carrying a basket on one arm, vegetables visible within it. "I thought you might need some food."

"I do," Sebastian humbly admitted. "Thank you again. I regret that there is currently no way I can repay you for your help and generosity."

Cullen smiled, and shrugged. "Is it not when someone is unable to help themselves that we should help them most?"

Sebastian blinked, then smiled warmly back at the other man. "Yes, it is. You are a man of faith," he said, with some faint surprise.

Cullen shrugged again, and walked over to set the basket down on the table, then began taking things out of it. "I am a templar."

"Yet not all templars have faith; I have seen this, while accompanying Hawke. To many it is just a job, no more special than being a guard, or a mercenary."

"Yes," Cullen agreed, and paused in setting down a sealed crock on the table, hand resting on it as he turned and glanced at Sebastian. "And there are the ones to whom it is not just a job, but a job with _perks_," he said bitterly, then frowned and returned to setting things out. "Is it the same in the priesthood?" he asked after a short silence.

"Not to as great a degree, at least not that I have seen... with priests who lack proper faith, it is _power_ that is, I think, the lure, more than any perquisites. We are expected to live a life of humility, after all... to dress modestly, to act kindly, to dedicate ourselves to Andraste and the Maker, not to earthly pleasures and temptations."

"Yet not all priests are humble, modest, or kind," Cullen said, setting aside the empty basket, then turned and leaned back against the edge of the table, looking questioningly at Sebastian. "Or beyond temptation."

"No. Yet many are; the best of us are. There are always those who will find excuse to use greater station to gain greater comforts for themselves; who when given power will use it to the benefit of themselves or their associates, rather than for the use for which it is intended. Part of why I admired Elthina so greatly was that she was not that sort; her robes were cut from the same cloth as ours, her personal quarters no finer, and only bigger so as to accommodate the needs of her role within the Chantry. When she could find time for it among her other duties, she still performed the same chores the rest of us did; working in the garden, baking bread to distribute to the poor, and the like. If she had any failing..." He trailed off.

"If she had any failing?" Cullen prompted after a period of silence.

Sebastian sighed. "If she had any failing, it was in her disinclination to _use_ her power outside of the chantry. I know she did not agree with the amount of secular power Knight-Commander Meredith had accumulated, especially following Viscount Dumar's death, and yet she did nothing to curb the woman. I believe she felt that she had no more right to interfere in the workings of Kirkwall than Meredith did; I believe she felt that imposing a solution on the city was not her choice to make, and that she expected the nobles and citizens to stand up, to name their own chosen ruler and quell Meredith themselves. I... believe she may have been wrong to not act," he admitted.

Cullen looked thoughtful, then slowly nodded. "You may be right. I don't think Meredith ever really saw her own powers as being contained or constrained, as something she only had the right to exercise within the grounds of the Gallows, or with mages. If it could be argued that it would affect mages and her ability to control them, she felt it was within her right to do, no matter what it involved. There was a time I merely thought her... dedicated. Resolved. Only now, looking back, do I see how unbending and ruthless she often was."

Cullen straightened up again, arms dropping back down to his sides. "Did you know her sister was a mage?" he asked, then turned away to look over the things he'd set out on the table.

"Meredith's?" Sebastian asked, surprised and shocked. "No, I hadn't heard. What happened to her?"

Cullen was silent a moment, moving things around on the table. "She was an apostate. Meredith and the rest of the family protected her. Something happened... I never heard just what, but she became an abomination. She destroyed their entire village, killed almost everyone in it, before she was finally killed herself. Meredith was one of the very few survivors."

"Oh," Sebastian said softly. "That explains... much, about her attitudes."

"I used to think so," Cullen agreed, then sighed and looked up. "Are you hungry? Have you eaten yet?"

"Yes to both; I scrounged up a meal some time ago, but I could certainly eat again," he said, and levered himself stiffly to his feet and limped over to the table. "What have you brought?"

There was vegetables, a bit of cooked meat still on the bone, a small bag each of oatmeal and barley. The crock proved to hold honey. "I'll make a pottage," Sebastian said, looking everything over.

"You know how to cook?" Cullen asked, sounding faintly surprised.

Sebastian smiled, amused by his surprise. "Yes. One of the many skills I learned in the Chantry; we all take our turns in the kitchen. I can make a few simple things, soups and stews and pottages and the like. And bread; I'm good at baking bread."

Cullen grinned. "Too bad I didn't buy you any flour, then. I bought bread instead," he said, flipping open a folded cloth to show a small pile of hard rolls. "I'm not much good at cooking myself, never had any reason to learn, but I know how to scrape off peels and slice things up. If there's a knife," he added.

Sebastian nodded, and pulled open the drawer of the cupboard where the tea canister and a few other odds and ends were stored, display a collection of random pieces of cutlery and a few knives. "Careful, he keeps them very sharp," he warned as he passed a small knife over, taking a slightly larger one himself.

Cullen sucked air through his teeth after incautiously testing just how sharp the blade was, and thereby shaving a thin layer of skin off the end of his thumb. "So I see," he said, and frowned at his thumb – thankfully not bleeding – and then set to work on scraping the skin off several carrots.

Sebastian claimed the joint of meat, cutting most of the flesh off and dicing it, then set it aside and put the bone in a pot with some water, and put it over the fire to heat for stock. He joined Cullen in preparing vegetables, peeling and chopping onions while Cullen moved on from the carrots to some parsnips and a turnip. The peelings and the green tops of the vegetables went into the pot to flavour the stock, along with some salt scraped off a loaf of it – also found in the cupboard – and a sprinkling of dried herbs from the same source, after Sebastian had sniffed cautiously at them to determine whether they were medicinal or edible.

"That will need to simmer for a while and be strained before we add anything else," he said, nodding at the stock pot. "Will you stay? Or do you have somewhere you need to be?"

"I'll stay," Cullen said after only a very slight hesitation, then frowned slightly at Sebastian. "Do you not have any proper clothes you can wear?"

Sebastian smiled. "Only the boots and leggings I was wearing when you brought me here, which are in need of a good washing, and this nightshirt. Fenris did not have an extensive wardrobe, and was rather smaller than I am, you perceive. And all my own clothing was in my room in the chantry."

"Ah. I'll bring you some clothing the next time I come then."

"Thank you. I am even deeper in your debt."

Cullen smiled, and made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "Don't worry about having to pay me back. Just pay it forward, to the next person or two you find yourself able to help."

That made Sebastian smile, and he nodded acceptance of Cullen's terms. "Of course," he said, then tilted his head. "Do you drink at all?"

Cullen smiled crookedly. "Sometimes. I try to avoid doing it to excess though; I did too much of that, after the rebellion. Not that it helped at all."

Sebastian nodded. "It never does," he agreed. "Apart from making you briefly forgetful, when it doesn't force you to remember, instead." He fetched a bottle from the cupboard, and found a pair of cups that only needed a little dust wiped out to be clean, then paused. "Huh... how to open this."

Cullen's eyebrows rose slightly. "Don't know where he kept his corkscrew?"

Sebastian grinned. "Fenris never had any need for one. His one good party trick, he would say, and just remove the cork by hand."

Cullen frowned, puzzled. "By hand?"

"You are aware of his abilities, surely? I know you've fought alongside him once or twice," Sebastian said, and began looking through the things in the drawer, hoping there might be one there.

"That magic-that-isn't-actually-magic of his? When he lights up in battle?"

"Yes. He can reach into and through things, when his lines are active. If you've ever heard anyone talking about him ripping hearts out, they were speaking quite literally. He can use his powers to reach into someone's body and selectively handle the wobbly bits inside. And never needs a corkscrew to remove a cork. Aha, this will do," he said, and pulled a nut-meat pick out of the drawer, stabbing it at an angle deep into the cork, using the pick to carefully lever and twist it out. He poured, handing one cup to Cullen before carrying the other and the open bottle over to a bench near the fire, sitting down at one end and gesturing for Cullen to take the other, setting the bottle down between them.

"Maker, that's good wine," Cullen exclaimed in surprise after cautiously sipping at it. "Your friend has expensive tastes."

Sebastian grinned. "Yes and no. He does, but he didn't buy this; his ex-master kept a very well-stocked wine cellar down in the basements here. Somewhat less well-stocked after Fenris having lived here for most of a decade; he took particular delight in drinking all the most expensive vintages first, you see."

That made Cullen laugh. "I like the way he thinks."

Sebastian grinned. "It does have a certain satisfactory feeling of justified retribution to it, does it not?" And then sighed. "I shall miss him."

"You and he were close."

"Yes, though only as friends, nothing more," Sebastian felt obligated to point out. "We merely enjoyed talking to each other."

"About what?" Cullan asked, sounding mildly surprised.

Sebastian smiled. "About anything and everything. He was not widely read – it was only in the last few years that he learned that skill at all – but he had a phenomenal memory, and his master was much-involved in the social and intellectual life of the Imperium. So while he may not have read Isarius' infamous book 'On Being and Becoming', he had heard almost every word of it read aloud and greatly debated in the salons of Minrathous. And remembered what he'd heard, and formed his own opinions."

"On Being and... isn't that one of the banned books?"

"Yes."

"But you're read it?"

"Yes," Sebastian said, and smiled. "My grandfather's younger brother had a heretical and enquiring turn of mind. And the Vael family never disposed of a book after acquiring it. Our library was – is – quite large, and has some quite unusual and rare volumes in it. As I recall the only reason I actually read that one was because it _was_ banned; as a youth I was generally more fascinated by the ones with interesting etchings than heretical arguments.."

That made Cullen grin. "I suppose we all were, at that age. Not that there were any such in the library of the monastery where I received my training, of course, but there were always those few volumes that no one admitted to actually owning, and just sort of generally circulated among the boys, growing more dog-eared, well-thumbed and, err... distressingly _stained_, over the years."

Sebastian laughed. They shared reminiscences for a while, of what it had been like for Cullen, going from being a simple farmer's son into templar training, and for Sebastian, going from being the libertine son of nobility to nothing but a lay brother in the chantry. They'd opened and were halfway through a second bottle by the time the barley pottage was made and ready to eat, and it was going dark outside before Cullen finally departed, heading back to the Gallows and his duty.

* * *

Cullen didn't return the next day, nor the one after that. Sebastian was feeling much more himself, having recovered from the physical strain he'd put himself through. Though he found himself feeling much less himself mentally. He'd wake, and find himself wanting to just roll over and go back to sleep, because at least when he was sleeping he wasn't thinking about those last few days, about Elthina and all the others he had known, now dead or fled. About how lost he felt, how hopeless and helpless.

He knew he had to give thought to his future, begin making plans; begin, if nothing else, looking for work to support himself, if he wasn't intending to return to the chantry. Even that was a decision he went back and forth on, sometimes feeling absolutely certain that it was where he belonged, and at others feeling like it was the last place he should be.

He had to force himself to get out of bed, to eat, to care for himself. He washed out his leggings and smalls and stockings, so he'd at least have more to wear than the nightshirt, and then just left them hanging, and curled up in bed with a bottle, understanding now why Fenris had sometimes done that. Though he regretted it when he woke with a sore head and a painfully full bladder the next day, and his mouth tasting as if something had died and rotted there.

The next day he noticed the growing unwashed reek of himself, and forced himself to prepare a bath, and change into his cleaned clothes, then wash and hang up the nightshirt to dry. There was very little food left, even though he hadn't been eating much. He'd have to go out soon, or starve, he found himself thinking as he combined the last handful of oatmeal and the remaining scraps of food to make a thin gruel, more soup than pottage. He knew where he might find a few coins hidden about the room, Fenris liking to keep at least a little money on hand, and found himself feeling guilty at the thought of taking and spending the elf's money, even though the chance of Fenris returning here for it was almost non-existent.

The gruel eaten, he curled up in the chair by the fire with a bottle, and drank the whole thing himself, telling himself that tomorrow he would go out. He'd need clothing, food, and to start looking for work... but tomorrow was soon enough. Or perhaps the day after; there was plenty of wine, and it wouldn't hurt him to fast for a day or two anyway...

* * *

A touch to his shoulder startled Sebastian awake. He stared at the figure standing by the bed, dressed all in armour, for a moment thinking it was Cullen back at last, until he finally focused on the face looking disapprovingly down at him. "Aveline?"

"You're a mess," she said sharply, and made a face. "And drunk, by the smell of it," she added, then stepped back from the bed, looking around the room before frowning down at him again. "When was the last time you ate?"

He stared at her, wondering why she was even here, then frowned in thought. "A day or two ago, I think. What day is it?"

She snorted. "Maker. All right, you're coming with me. Gather up anything you want to take with you. You can't stay here."

"Why not?" he asked, as he struggled to sit up.

She frowned. "Because I'd rather not be back here a week from now watching your corpse being carried out, and clearly you're unable to look after yourself properly right now," she snapped, then grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, steading him when he staggered and almost fell. "Idiot," she said. "Are you _trying _to drink yourself to death?"

"No," he said, and then flushed, only then realizing that he was dressed in nothing but his smalls.

"I brought you some clothes," she told him, and released his arm, watching for a moment to be sure he had his balance before turning away and stalking over to where she'd left a basket sitting on the bench near the fire.

"You knew I was here?" he asked, startled.

"As of this morning, yes. Cullen asked me to check in on you, since he couldn't. He was worried about you."

"Cullen? How is he?"

"Not good," she said, as she brought the basket over and set it on the foot of the bed, then glanced at him, her expression unreadable. "They've arrested him."

"The guards?"

"No, of course not the guards. The bloody damned chantry! A ship full of templars and priests arrived from Cumberland a couple of days ago; word had reached them about what happened here, and they came here to _investigate_. I've got the Gallows and half the docks being held by foreign templars, and instead of dealing with them, I'm here seeing that you haven't drunk yourself to death," she said, anger evident in her voice, though he didn't think it was actually directed at him. then dumped out the contents of the basket. "I couldn't recover all of your armour, but here's what I could find," she added. "And some other clothing. I hope I got the sizes right."

Sebastian stared at the pile. His leather and scale coat, minus the gold-trimmed breastplate, the leather archer's glove for his right hand, and his belt, the buckle stripped of its gold ornamentation, the white enamel cracked and stained. It had flaked off entirely from one of Andraste's eyes, the darker metal underneath giving her a strange look, as if she had one eye wide open and the other shut. He picked it up, running one thumb gentle along the curve of her cheek. "Thank you," he said softly, then put down the belt and picked up a shirt. Plain linen, a little tight across the shoulders when he drew it on, but wearable. He pulled on a pair of the stockings she'd brought, and then his leggings – still clean, thankfully – and the scale-sewn coat over top. The gauntlet and belt he dropped back into the basket, along with the remainder of the clothing, then looked around the room, frowning as he considered what else he should take with him.

Aveline had withdrawn to give him some privacy while he changed, and was standing with folded arms gazing into the unlit fireplace. "How bad is it?" he asked her, as he opened the cupboard and took out the half-full tin of tea to add to the basket – no sense in letting it go to waste – and what was left of the crock of honey, and then steeled himself and circled the room, opening all of Fenris' little caches that he knew about and gathering up the coins within. If they ever met again, he'd pay it back, and if not... well, he'd just have to pay it forward.

She looked up, frowning slightly when she saw what he was about. "It's pretty bad. Both the Nevarrans and Orlais would be happy to snap Kirkwall up as part of their own territory, and they may use this as a pretext to do so. I received word on the ship's arrival soon enough that I was at least able to contain the Nevarran templars to the docks for now, but that might not work for long; the Qunari certainly had no trouble invading the city from there," she said, a touch bitterly.

"The qunari had gaatlok and surprise on their side," Sebastian pointed out, picking his belt out of the basket long enough to pour the handful of coin he'd gathered into one of the belt pouches. "I doubt the Nevarrans are as well-prepared; they likely expected no resistance at all to their landing here. They probably expected the city to still be in complete turmoil."

"We're not all that far from it. Most of my people have been working double-shifts since the explosion, keeping a lid on things. I've had to impose a curfew in most of the city. If it wasn't for Varric and his merchant's association and a few of the more far-sighted nobles throwing their weight behind me..." She sighed, and shook her head. "I'm holding on to order by my fingernails. The only good thing about the situation at the moment is it's brought most of the factions together; if there's one thing almost everyone can agree on, it's that we have no wish to become part of Nevarra or Orlais."

Sebastian grinned briefly at the tone of mixed annoyance and relief in her voice. He added a last few things the basket – a goblet Fenris had sometimes used, at least when not just drinking directly from the bottle, a book about Shartan that Hawke had once given the elf, a beautifully bound copy of the Chant of Light he'd given Fenris himself – and picked it up. "That's everything," he said, and looked regretfully around the room, wondering if he would ever return here.

"You'd better let me carry that," Aveline said, frowning at him. "I'd rather not have you fainting in the street."

Sebastian flushed. "I'm not that far gone."

She snorted, and pointedly held out her hand. "You haven't seen yourself in a mirror lately, I'm guessing. Come on, hand it over."

His flush darkened, but being well-familiar with just how stubborn the woman could be, he surrendered the basket, and followed her down and out of the building. "Where are we going?" he asked as he walked with her down the street to the stairs.

"The Keep. I've taken over a number of rooms there for my guards and their families to stay in while we're getting the troubles sorted out; they work better when they're not worried about the safety of their own, and its safer for them to all be there than scattering off to their homes. You can stay there for a while too, while we figure out what to do with you."

"Thank you," he said quietly, then frowned. "How was Cullen when you last saw him?"

She sighed. "Well enough; they have him under house arrest in the Gallows, while they investigate his actions during the rebellion. I refused to speak with them until they let me see him; insisted that he's the only local templar whose power I currently recognize, and that if they didn't let me speak with him I'd have no choice but to assume they were here without proper Chantry authority, and deal with them accordingly. They didn't like that at all, but they finally brought him to the docks long enough to speak with me before hauling him off again." She felt silent for a few paces, then spoke again. "I don't think they've abused him or put him to the question, if that's what you're asking, but I'm not sure what they intend to do with him."

"He thought it unlikely he'd be allowed to remain in power here, after his part in the muting against Meredith, no matter how in the wrong she herself was. He told me he thought it likely that he'd be reduced to a mere templar again."

Aveline's lips pressed together in a thin line. "A waste. He's a good man; we'd be far worse off if he and his templars had supported Meredith. Varric's told me about what happened at the Gallows. Damn the woman, anyway... well, at least she'd gone now, and if we can just keep a lid on the Nevarrans and keep any like-minded Orlesians out, we might have a chance of doing something to improve things in Kirkwall now, without her eternal meddling. Though that's a couple of pretty big ifs."

"If there's anything I can do to help..."

Aveline snorted, then paused a moment before resuming walking, a thoughtful look on her face. "There might be."

"Oh?"

"You're known among the nobles here; more, you're known to have been very high in Elthina's regard. I'm no good at dealing with nobles, they always want the law to only apply to other people and not to them. But maybe you can help me with them; at least give me advice on dealing with them, and maybe even on what arguments to use against these damned Nevarran priests. City law I know; chantry law I'm less familiar with. Are you?"

"Familiar with chantry law? Yes," he agreed, and frowned in thought himself. "They're well out of their area of authority here, and yes, there are rules it might be worth reminding them that they're supposed to be following. Certainly it can't hurt to try."

"Good. We'll get you settled in at the Keep, and fed, and then I'm going to want to pick your brain."

Sebastian smiled thinly. "Pick away. Whatever I can do to help you – and Cullen, for that matter, after all the help he's given me of late – I will do."

* * *

His first glance in a mirror showed Sebastian what Aveline had meant; he'd lost considerable weight, his cheekbones showing with a sharpness they'd lacked before, cheeks hollowed, dark bags under his eyes, chin and cheeks coated with heavy stubble. Seeing his face so changed startled him; apart from the stubble and dark hair, he looked very much like his memories of his grandfather, at least as much as he remembered of his features. When he removed his clothes to bathe and change, he noticed how prominent his ribs were, how drawn in his belly.

How many days _had_ it been, since he'd last eaten properly? It worried him that he couldn't even be sure of how many days it had been since the destruction of the chantry, but they all blurred together in his head, the count made impossible by how broken his sleep pattern had been ever since, so that he'd sometimes slept more than once in a day, and not been sure when he woke if he'd slept only an hour or two, or an entire day.

He bathed, cleaning himself thoroughly from head to toe, and changed into clean clothes. He was sitting near the window drying his hair when there was a knock on the door, which proved to be Aveline returning, with food for him; bread sops in broth.

"You should eat lightly after not having eaten properly for some time," she informed him. "If you have no problems with digesting that, you can have a real meal later."

He smiled crookedly, and picked up the spoon, eating slowly while she questioned him about applicable chantry law for the problem with the Nevarrans. She was looking pleased by the time he'd talked himself out.

"I'll be back to talk to you again tomorrow," she told him. "We'll have to see about getting you some better clothing if you're going to be my aide. I'll send Bran to see you tomorrow, he's got good clothing sense and will know what's appropriate."

"The seneschal? He's still here?"

"Yes, he's been taking care of the civil side of things. Doing his best to keep the city running normally. I don't think he's left the keep since the explosion – rumour is he's got a cot or bedroll hidden away somewhere, and sleeps in his office to be sure he's on hand if needed. I'm just thankful someone is doing it; I have enough on my plate already without worrying about whether people are still paying their taxes or have the proper licenses and permits. Not that I think this is necessarily a time when things like that should be worried about, but the more normal things seem to be, the happier everyone else is. And if being reminded their quarterly tax is due next week makes the merchants happy, I'm hardly going to argue. Especially since the city needs the money to pay my guardsmen. And you, I suppose – if you're going to be my aide, you'll be getting a salary as well as temporary housing."

"Thank you," Sebastian said.

Aveline made a dismissive gesture as she rose to her feet. "It's only fair. Anyway, Bran will discuss that with you as well – I'm sure he has a bit of paper somewhere that outlines what sort of pay is fair. He seems to have bits of paper for almost everything. I'll see you again tomorrow, after I've met with the Nevarrans again."

* * *

"You understand I wouldn't do this for just anyone," Bran said stiffly as he stretched a knotted cord along Sebastian's arm from shoulder to wrist. "I'm a busy man. I have other things I should be doing. But the Guard-Captain insists she needs you suitably dressed to talk to the nobles and priests on her behalf, and that she trusts me to know what's appropriate for your station."

"She spoke well of your dress sense," Sebastian said agreeably.

Bran sniffed dismissively, but looked briefly pleased. "I do have an eye for fashion," he agreed, and jotted down the measurement he'd taken, then took another, wrapping the string around Sebastian's chest this time. "Thankfully I know a tailor who'll be able to make you suitable clothing in good colours and fabrics quickly; it will take a day or two before the first outfit arrives, but he does lovely work. A little expensive, perhaps, but you pay for speed. In this case quite literally; the cost of the outfits will come out of your pay, though I'll spread it out so that you'll still have enough money for whatever other needs you have."

"I'll need a good bow, arrows..."

"Not my area of speciality," Bran cut him off. "Anyway, you won't need a weapon to speak with nobles."

"Hopefully not," Sebastian agreed, amused. "But this is Kirkwall. I would not like to walk the streets without a weapon after dark, if I have cause to be out and about."

"True, I suppose. The guards have an armoury; you may be able to find something there that will do you until you can have something properly made to your own specifications," Bran said, mollified.

"Thank you, I will check the armoury as soon as I am able to. When will I be paid?"

"I'll send you an advance against your first pay packet tomorrow morning, once I've finished the necessary paperwork. You'll be paid weekly after that, at the end of each week's work. Clothing expenses will begin being deducted after I've received the bill for it."

Bran took a few more measurements, instructing Sebastian on how to take a couple of the more indelicately placed ones himself, and then left with his string and notebook.

* * *

"You look pleased," Sebastian told Aveline as he let her into the room later that day.

"I am. The Nevarrans have agreed – rather reluctantly, I might add – that they have no authority in Kirkwall itself, and have withdrawn the templars they had in the docklands to the Gallows. I'd prefer to have them gone entirely, but that's at least a slight improvement in the situation. If only I could get rid of them entirely..."

"I've an idea of two about that. Surely I wasn't the only member of the Chantry who was outside of it when it was destroyed; do you know if any of the senior clergy survived?"

"Yes, there's a handful of religious who survived for one reason or another, though mostly lay sisters rather than priests, and one of the two priests who did survive is in a bad way. Not physical injury, but..." she trailed off.

"I understand. Do you know names?"

"Sister Bernice, Mother Petra, Sister Hagnild, Brother Jorem, and Mother Livia."

"Livia! I hope she is not the one in a bad way...?"

"No, that would be Petra. Livia is injured, however; she was in the gardens when it happened, and was thrown through an open gate by the blast; the impact when she landed broke one leg and fractured her ribs on one side. But it saved her life; half the west tower ended up in the gardens."

"I'll want to talk with her," Sebastian said firmly. "She was high in Elthina's counsels, and the most senior of the clergy you named. Lacking any instructions to the contrary from higher in the church after the deaths, it is she that would be the Revered Mother for Kirkwall at present, and arguably even the acting Grand Cleric for the Free Marches, at least until one is formally elected by the College of Clerics. There is precedent for it, anyway. If Livia is willing to co-operate with you, she may be of use against the Nevarrans. And from what I remember of her politics, she would not side with them. Though I will warn you that she may be of less use if an Orlesian force arrives; they would likely arrive here with proper authority, whereas the Nevarrans most decidedly have not."

Aveline nodded slowly. "Right. We'll worry about that if and when it happens. Right now I just want the Nevarrans gone."

* * *

Sebastian glanced at Aveline's face as she watched the Nevarran ship sailing away out the neck of the harbour. It was set in an expression of distaste.

"Well, that's over with finally," she said, sounding pleased, then glanced down the docks to where Mother Livia was being helped aboard the ferry for the trip over to the Gallows to see what condition the departing Nevarrans had left the place in. "I'm not looking forward to this," she added, and started walking that direction herself, gesturing for a group of her guards that were waiting nearby to go ahead and board as well.

"Neither am I," Sebastian agreed quietly. It had taken over a week to convince the Nevarrans to leave, even with Mother Livia's help; Sebastian could only wonder what the place was like, between all that had happened there several weeks ago, and whatever might have occurred while the Nevarrans held it. They were guardedly relived to see figures moving around at the dock as the ferry approached, and then worried afresh when they drew close enough to see that they were all tranquil.

"Where are all the templars," Aveline said softly as the ferry moved in to dock, several of the tranquil moving to catch and tie the ropes to bollards.

It was the first question Mother Livia asked as well, as she was helped ashore, her splinted leg making movement difficult for her. "Where are our templars?" she asked loudly, peering short-shortsightedly at the closest tranquil, a blond female whom Sebastian belatedly recognized as Meredith's secretary Elsa.

"This way," Elsa said, and turned and walked off, several of the tranquil accompanying her, the rest just standing silently after finishing tying up the ferry.

Sebastian and Aveline disembarked, following along in the wake of the Revered Mother's party. He hissed in shock as they emerged from the passageway from the docks into the Gallows courtyard. He'd heard of what had happened here, but seeing the ruins himself... the missing and destroyed statuary, the darkened patch on the pavement that he guessed must be where Meredith had died, made it real for him in a way that mere words couldn't.

Aveline swore, but for an entirely different reason he realized when he looked the direction she was. More tranquil, laying a row of bodies in the shade to one side of the courtyard. Men, women, even children, all dressed in robes... the few mages who'd survived the rebellion. No, not laying out bodies, he saw as they drew closer – tending them. Not all were dead, though many were, those who weren't dead all marked with the tranquil brand. And not all of the dead were mages; to one side was a handful of templars, all clearly having died to sword wounds, most of them not even in their armour but instead in their off-duty clothing, recognizable as templars only because Sebastian knew their faces.

"What was done here?" Livia demanded loudly, face creased with anger. "Who has done this thing?"

It was Elsa who answered, voice flat and emotionless, as Tranquil always spoke. "The Nevarrans have annulled the Kirkwall circle. They gave all the mages a choice; death, or tranquillity."

Livia trembled visibly, for a moment unable to even speak. "And these templars?" she asked, gesturing at the bodies.

"They tried to prevent it."

Livia closed her eyes, lips moving in prayer for a moment. "I will want to know their names," she said when she was done, sounding almost eerily calm. "Their names, and whatever of their stories any of you can tell me. They faced a great evil here, and I say the choice they made was the right one; to resist, even if it cost them their life." She looked at the mages as well, the dead, the tranquil, her face setting. She looked as emotionless as a tranquil herself, though Sebastian knew her well enough to know that this was a sign that she was too overcome to wish to show her feelings.

Sebastian frowned, searching the faces of the dead himself. "I don't see Cullen among them," he murmured softly to Aveline.

She nodded, and stepped forward, gaining Livia and Elsa's attention. "What of Knight-Captain Cullen? I do not see him among the dead, nor many others that I know were here before the Nevarran's arrival."

"This way," Elsa said calmly, and walked off again.

Livia commanded most of her escort to remain and help with the bodies, both the living and the dead, keeping only a pair of people to help her walk as they followed Elsa into the Gallows, stopping only once they reached a locked door.

"The Nevarrans took the keys with them," Elsa said, then slipped her hand within her sash, and drew out a ring of keys. "They did not know that I also have a set."

She opened the door, leading them inside and down a long spiral staircase, into an area of cells beneath the Gallows. Cells that were doubtless normally used to contain mages, Sebastian suspected, noticing glyphs and runes carved into the floor, the walls, even the bars and locks of the cells. Here were the missing templars, locked away two or three to a cell. Some showed signs of having put up a fight – bruises, cuts – but at least they were alive, and rose to their feet, excited to see faces they recognized and calling out worried questions.

"Free them," Livia ordered, speaking loudly to be heard over their voices. Elsa nodded once and moved from door to door, unlocking each with a different key, the templars spilling out into the hallway, some having to be supported by their companions. Livia waited until they were all released, then raised one hand for silence. "The Nevarrans have left," she told them. "But not without causing great harm first. Your charges..." Her voice trembled for a moment, her pain showing on her face for a moment. "The circle has been annulled. Your charges are all either dead or made tranquil. Go, give them what care you can, and care for yourselves as well. We will have to decide in the coming days what is to be done now, but first we must see to the comfort of the living, and the burning of the dead."

Aveline looked around, and frowned. "Where is Knight-Captain Cullen?"

Livia looked questioningly at Elsa. "The Knight-Captain?"

"This way," Elsa said again, and headed back the way they'd come.

Two of the templars took over from Livia's helpers, lifting her up bodily and carrying her between the two of, supporting her in their arms as if she sat in a chair, back up the stairs and then higher still in the Gallows, until Elsa finally stopped again, at another locked door, and opened it.

Sebastian thought the room empty at first, until there was movement in a shadowed corner, Cullen lifting his head from his knees to blink at them. He was almost naked, Sebastian saw, wearing just a stained pair of smalls, his skin dark with bruises, one eye swollen mostly shut, his lips swollen and split. He stared at them for a moment, expression as empty as a tranquil's, and then his eyes met Sebastian's and he smiled. "Sebastian," he croaked out, then looked at the others, recognizing them as well. "Guard-Captain, Mother Livia..."

He moved, as if to attempt rising to his feet, then winced and slumped back. "Forgive me for not rising," he rasped out. "I fear they broke my ribs. Among other things," he said, and only then did Sebastian notice the state of his hands, bruised and swollen, several fingers obviously either dislocated or broken, judging by their odd angles.

Aveline cursed fulsomely. Livia sniffed. "Seconded. Does anyone know if there's a healing mage left alive anywhere in the city? We'll need one here, and for more than just the Knight-Captain. We used to have several quite good ones," she added bitterly.

Cullen paled. "What has happened?" he demanded.

"Those blighted Nevarrans annulled the circle before they left," one of the templars that had accompanied them told him, voice angry.

Cullen's eyes closed, a look of pain on his face. "After all we did to try and save them."

"Yes. Curse them to the Black City for what they've done," the other templar said.

"I may be able to turn up a healer," Aveline interupted. "Though given what's happened here..."

Livia gave her a sharp look, then nodded understandingly, and turned away. "Help me back to the courtyard, if you please. There is much that needs doing here, and I trust the Guard-Captain's judgement. She and whomever she wishes to accompany her may come and go here without question, by my order."

"Thank you," Aveline called after her retreating back, then looked at Sebastian. "Stay here and do what you can for the Knight-Captain, I'll be back as soon as I may."

Sebastian nodded, and with the help of the templars moved Cullen out of the room and off to proper quarters, where Cullen ordered the templars off to see to the survivors in the courtyard.

"My turn to help you, it looks like," Sebastian said to Cullen. "At least for an hour or two."

Cullen smiled thinly. "So it seems," he said, and then looked over Sebastian's outfit. "You look like you've landed on your feet."

"I'm Aveline's aide now. She wanted someone who could help her deal with nobles. And the chantry."

Cullen nodded. "You're a good choice for that."

"I hope so."

"So you'll be staying on in Kirkwall then?"

"Perhaps. I've not decided yet. And you?"

Cullen frowned. "Ask me again in a few days. Maybe. Though right now what I mostly think is that I don't want to be a templar any more."

Sebastian nodded slowly. "Understandable. And a great loss, if you leave."

"Because I'm better than the alternative?" Cullen said, and made a face. "I don't know that I'd agree with that. Do you know what I once told Hawke?"

"That mages aren't people like us? Yes, I heard."

"Yeah," Cullen said, and looked away. "There was a time I believed that. When I _wanted_ to believe that."

"What changed your mind?"

Cullen turned back, and smiled thinly. "Hawke herself, among other things. Pieces of work like Ser Alrik too, when I realized that was how he thought about mages. As not really human, so it was okay to treat them however he wanted to. I remembered that I didn't used to think of them that way; that I'd used to _like_ mages. There was this one elf girl in particular..." He trailed off, a fond smile briefly on his lips, then shrugged. "The demons that played with my head... it was the fear _they'd_ given me that was speaking, I realized. Men are good or bad separate from whether they are mundanes or mages. It just took me a while to remember that. And mundanes can do things every bit as horrific as what any mage-turned-abomination might," he added bitterly, then fell silent for a few minutes. "_Annulled._ How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad. They gave the mages a choice between death and being made tranquil. It looked to me like most of them chose death," Sebastian said quietly. "And they killed some of your men who'd tried to stop them."

A look of pain crossed Cullen's face. "Damn them."

Sebastian nodded, then shifted position. "I hope you stay," he said quietly. "Whether as Knight-Captain or not. I... have very few people I've ever considered to be friends. And I am tired of losing them."

Cullen gave him a searching look. "_Are_ we friends?"

"I hope so. I enjoy your company, enjoy talking with you... though I will understand if you don't feel the same..."

"No, no, I do... it's just..."

"Just?" Sebastian prompted after a moment, when Cullen fell silent without completing the thought.

"Just that I, too, have had very few people I have thought of as friends," he said, almost shyly. "Of those that are still alive, at least as far as I know... well, there's you, and a childhood friend I haven't spoken to since before I left Ferelden. The others died at Kinloch Hold," he added bleakly.

Sebastian gave him a questioning look. "And you have no friends here?"

"No," Cullen admitted. "I was... strange, still, when I first came here. Haunted. And then once I started getting better, Meredith promoted me, and then promoted me again. After that what tentative friendships I'd managed to start all fell away. "

"Ah, yes. A phenomena I am familiar with," Sebastian admitted, remembering his own first few years in Kirkwall, and how between his noble past and Elthina's good regard and favour there'd been few willing to befriend him. He had eventually, over the years, managed to form at least a few friendships, though now... "Most of mine are dead too," he said softly. "Except Fenris, and you."

"Aveline? Hawke?"

He shrugged. "Aveline tolerates me, as I am of use to her. Perhaps in time we might become friends. Hawke... well, I told you how little she seemed to react when I might have been killed. I think now that our friendship may have been rather one-sided; that I thought of her as a friend, while she merely saw me as a useful body for when she needed an archer and Varric was not available. As to the others... possibly Isabela. Maybe. But not the others."

Cullen nodded slowly. "It sounds like we've both had rather lonely lives here."

"Yes," Sebastian agreed softly.

Cullen fell silent for a while, looking thoughtful. "A man should have friends."

"Yes."

Cullen smiled crookedly. "So... what have you been up to while I was entertaining the Nevarrans?"

Sebastian frowned slightly. "It's a long story," he warned.

Cullen gave a minimal shrug, wincing as the movement jarred his hands. "I'm not going anywhere. At least not right now."

Sebastian smiled, and began.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you sure you won't stay?" Aveline asked.

Sebastian shook his head. "No. I thank you for the offer, but I have decided it would be better for me to go somewhere else... to start fresh."

"Not Starkhaven then?"

Sebastian smiled thinly. "No, not Starkhaven either. My cousin Goren Vael is doing well enough as Prince there. Even if I believe he is far from the best ruler Starkhaven might have, I cannot say that I would be able to do any better myself, and... well, it is another place that has too many unpleasant associations for me."

"Where will you go then? Or do you not know?"

"Not hunting after Hawke or Anders, if that's what you're thinking. Cullen wants to return to Ferelden long enough to visit his parents, if they're still alive. After that... well, we neither of us have any real plans yet. I suppose we'll just have to see what fortune brings us."

"So he _is_ going too? The last time I'd spoke with him, he was still unsure about whether to stay or go."

"Yes. Kirkwall has as many bad memories for him as it does for me. And after his experiences with those Nevarrans who came... he has no desire to be here if representatives of the Orlesian chantry put in an appearance. We'll be travelling together."

Aveline sighed. "Well, I'll miss you both, as strange as it may seem to say; you were both invaluable over the last few months."

Sebastian smiled. "I'm sure we'll both miss you as well. It has been an honour knowing you, Viscount Aveline."

Aveline flushed a little. "I'm never going to forgive you and Bran for that, you know. The nobles would never have done it if not for you two."

Sebastian grinned briefly. "We might have contributed to their decision in some small way, but they would never have agreed to it if you hadn't deserved it. You earned their trust with your actions both before and after the destruction of the chantry; many of them they may still publicly complain about you being a stickler for the law, but I think most of them have privately realized that the rule of law is far preferable to misrule, lawlessness, or rule imposed by foreign powers."

Aveline smiled, looking pleased. "I'll try to believe you're right about that. They're stuck with me now... and I with them, I suppose. And I _am_ sorry to see you go; Cullen as well. Let him know that, please, will you?"

Sebastian smiled, and bowed. "I shall. And now I'd best be on my way; our ship departs early tomorrow morning, and I've a few things still left to pack. Farewell, Aveline."

"Farewell to you as well, Sebastian. And thank you for everything."

He smiled, and gave her a final, much deeper bow, then left her office. Bran looked up from his desk, and smiled and nodded, but said nothing himself; he'd known of Sebastian's plans for some time, and the two men had already said their brief farewells earlier, after seeing to the last of the paperwork related to Sebastian's employment as Aveline's aide over the last few months.

It was with a rather lighter step that he returned to his own quarters, knowing that he'd finished with the last of his obligations in Kirkwall, and would be leaving the next day. He smiled when he entered, seeing Cullen stretched out on the settee near the fireplace, one foot resting on the arm and the other dropped to the floor, a small pillow stuffed beneath his head, and snoring softly. Cullen had his own rooms further down the hall, but spent much of his time in Sebastian's, the two of them having become fast friends since the destruction of the Kirkwall chantry. Cullen had helped Sebastian during the first few days afterwards, while he was still stunned with events; later, Sebastian had helped Cullen, while he recovered from injuries he'd been given at the hands of a group of Nevarran clergy and templars who had temporarily occupied the Gallows.

Afterwards... after he'd healed, Cullen had decided against returning to the Gallows. With the Kirkwall Circle having been annulled by the Nevarrans, all the mages rendered either dead or tranquil regardless of age, there hadn't seemed any great need for him to resume his duties as Knight-Captain. The templars who'd survived the occupation were few; their comparative handful of living charges were incapable of rebellion. The two surviving Knight-Lieutenants were sharing the responsibility of leading the remaining templars between them, one on day shift and one at night, and doing a perfectly acceptable job of it. Perhaps in future, once the circle had been revived by further templars and mages being sent from more crowded circles, a real Knight-Captain would be needed again, a real Knight-Commander as well. In any event, after what Cullen had undergone during the day and night of the chantry's destruction, and then what he's later suffered in the Gallows at the hands of the Nevarrans, he'd ceased to consider himself a templar any longer.

Sebastian left him where he was, knowing how poorly the man usually slept – prone to nightmares, and usually unable to return to sleep once woken – and went on into the bedroom, where he still had some clothing and a few mementos to finish packing away. Not that he had any great amount of either; he'd lost almost all of his few possessions when Anders' had destroyed the chantry. He'd accumulated a few things since; several changes of clothing, a new bow only recently bought out of his salary, replacements for some of his armour and small belongings that had been damaged or gone missing. He had only a handful of souvenirs of his life here now, mostly items scavenged from Fenris' quarters, though he'd also on impulse made a trip down to Darktown one day, and had retrieved a copy of the apostate's manifesto from the already well-scavenged ruins of Anders' clinic as a reminder of the man who'd destroyed or ended the lives of so many people. Apart from that there was the damaged buckle from his belt, now replaced with a much plainer boss, and a chunk of carved stone the size of the palm of his hand, once part of the walls of the Kirkwall chantry.

Over a decade and a half of living in Kirkwall, and yet less than an hour to pack away everything he owned.

* * *

Cullen woke to the sound of supper being served, and the smell of beef stew. He smiled even before he opened his eyes and sat up. "That's one thing I'll miss," he said.

Sebastian looked up from where he was ladling stew out of the warming pan into his bowl. "What? Oh, the stew?"

"Beef stew, yes. Too pricey a meat for most commoners, you know, especially here in Kirkwall where there's no grazing lands and even mutton has to be imported. I'm sure that in Ferelden I can pretty much guarantee you that we'll be eating a lot of mutton and doves and occasional game. And fish; plenty of fish there, between the oceans, Lake Calenhad and the rivers."

"Best we enjoy this beef while we still have it, then," Sebastian said, smiling, and gestured to the other seat at the small table.

Cullen smiled in return, rising to his feet and pushing his hair back from his face. It had grown out in the last few months, long enough to sometimes fall in front of his eyes and bother him, after so many years of keeping it cut short and brushed back. Some days he swore he was going to have it all chopped short again, but he somehow never got around to actually doing so; he found himself wondering what it would be like to have longer hair, such as he'd not had since he was a young boy back on his father's farm.

The stew was delicious, the beef having been seethed with wine, herbs and mushrooms until tender, and served with a mash of mixed root vegetables, buttered steamed greens, as well as some good manchet bread to sop up the gravy with. "I'll miss the keep cooks," Cullen said, licking a last drip of gravy off his fingers.

Sebastian grinned. "As will I. And the feather beds; as many years as I spent on a thinly padded cot in the chantry, it's amazing how quickly I have already become used to sleeping on a real mattress again."

Cullen snorted. "An acquaintance with soft mattresses is, I must admit, only a recently acquired habit for me. Though one I have quite liked and will also miss. Even the straw-filled ticks I grew up with were better than the beds in the templar dormitory; I don't think the so-called mattresses we had there weren't much thicker then a poorly wadded quilt. The mattress I slept on in the Gallows was better, but still a far from luxurious bed; just a wadded pad supported by ropes, the wadding long since felted down."

Sebastian laughed. "That sounds much like the mattress on my own cot," he said. "I suppose the chantry got them all from the same source, some times years ago." He quieted, looking sober. "I do not much miss the accommodations I had, but the people..."

"Yes," Cullen agreed softly. "It's people that make a difference in whether some place is a penance or a pleasure to live in. Ferelden... my time was a templar there was pleasant, until the circle was overrun. I lost all my friends then."

"As I have now lost them here. Are you certain it's Ferelden you want to travel to first?"

"Yes. I haven't had word of my parents since the Blight year, not even to know if they're still alive. My mother was never entirely happy about my going off to become a templar – she'd had her heart set on my marrying the daughter of a childhood friend of hers – but my father was proud that I was going to serve Andraste. He'd my sister's husband and children already on hand to someday inherit his bit of property, so he didn't mind losing me to the chantry. She was ten years older than I, and married to a farmer with few prospects of his own, his own father having too many other sons."

Sebastian nodded. "Where was their farm?"

"In the bannorn, not far from the Lake Calenhad docks; a day's long travel, if you pushed. It was why I'd decided I wanted to be a templar, from having seen them pass back and forth on the road near our house so often," he explained, then toyed with his wine goblet for a moment; both of them drank, but only well-watered wine. "I suppose if we're that close, I should consider visiting the tower, however briefly. If Greagoir has not yet retired, I would like to see and speak with him once more."

Sebastian nodded. "I certainly have no objections. I have no goals of my own as to where to go. I am content to follow along where you wish to go for now."

Cullen nodded. "Thank you. I am glad of your company."

"As I am of yours; I do not have so many friends that I would welcome seeing you pass out of my life."

Cullen smiled. "Nor do I. And a man should have friends."

Sebastian nodded, and lifted his own cup of wine to toast to that; it was a phrase that had become something of a touchstone to the pair of them, each currently reduced to having only the other as someone on hand that they could truly call _friend_.

* * *

They walked down to the docks in the pre-dawn darkness, accompanied by a pair of Aveline's guards who she'd loaned them to be sure they made it there safely. They hadn't needed any porters, each having only enough belongings to fill a single pack, and even then their bedrolls and food took up more room than their belongings did.

It seemed strange to Sebastian to see Cullen dressed in armour other than the distinctive templar gear. Cullen had left the Gallows on a stretcher, wearing little more than a night shirt and smalls under the blanket that had been draped over him to protect his modesty. He had never returned; what few personal belongings he retained had been brought to him at his request, retrieved from his quarters by one of the remaining senior templars. He had not requested his armour or arms, feeling that if he was leaving the templars it was no longer something he had any right to wear. The armour, sword and shield he bore now was a mismatched set put together of odds and ends purchased at the stalls in Lowtown market, doubtless much of it scavenged from the corpses of those killed during the recent rioting. It fit him reasonably well, the armour and shield were sufficiently sturdy and his blade tolerably balanced and sharp, but that was about all that could be said of it. It wasn't even matched in material or colour, leaving him looking far more like a poor mercenary than a well-regarded knight of the chantry.

The sky was just beginning to flush with colour in the east when they reached the docks, and the ship they'd booked passage on. The ship's crew were already stirring, preparing to set sail, and the captain spoke to them only long enough to accept the remainder of their fare and then hurried off about his own business. The ship didn't have any cabins as such; all they'd bought had been deck passage, the cheapest sort of fare available, neither of them being overly gifted with coin. They were pointed at a patch of decking behind the low deck-house, out of the way of the busy sailors, and told to remain there at least until the ship was underway, and preferably afterwards too.

It wasn't long before the lines were cast off, the ship moving slowly out from dock. Cullen glanced just the once towards the Gallows, then turned his back on it and Kirkwall and steadfastly looked only at the view down the neck, out of Kirkwall harbour. Sebastian stood watching the city for a while, painfully aware of the gap in the skyline of Hightown, at least until he could stand it no longer, and then turned his back as well. "Well, we're off," he said, voice cracking a little on the words.

Cullen glanced sideways and nodded. "To Ferelden," he said softly.

"Aye," Sebastian agreed, and then smiled faintly. "To Ferelden."

* * *

They had worn their armour and weapons down to the dock as the easiest – and safest – way to transport it, but once the ship put to sea they stripped it off, storing it away in burlap sacks brought along for the purpose. Armour was of no use at sea, and if anything an active danger in deep water, so there was little point in wearing it on board. Besides, the day was warming quickly, and they were going to be more than warm enough in their leather leggings and the plain linen shirts they pulled on in place of Sebastian's arming jacket and Cullen's quilted gambeson.

The spot of deck they'd been pointed at had the advantage of being out of the sun as well as out of the way of the sailors, so they simply stayed there, making themselves as comfortable as they could, sitting on folded bedrolls with their backs against the low wall of the deck-house. "How long will it take us to travel to where your parents live?" Sebastian asked curiously.

"We should make dock in Highever late tomorrow. Then it's at least two or three days of travel to the southwest to reach the farm, if I remember the distances right... I didn't travel that way very often myself. Even when I departed Ferelden, I was sent north to Aeonar first."

"Aeonar! The chantry prison? Why there?"

Cullen shrugged. "Escorting a prisoner; a chantry sister who'd aided a blood mage to flee the tower, some little time before the uprising. She was lucky enough to be down in the holding cells under the tower when the uprising occurred; it saved her life. Though I'm not sure how lucky she considered that to be. Anyway, from Aeonar I took ship to Kirkwall, along with several other templars all being transfered to northern establishments. With so many mages dead at Kinloch, Ferelden had more templars than we needed, even with most of us having died too."

Cullen lifted his head, and stared at the horizon for a long moment, the cliffs of Kirkwall and the Wounded Coast only just barely visible as a dark edge to the northern horizon. "I was glad to be sent to Kirkwall, at first. Meredith seemed to be... more resolute then Knight-Commander Greagoir had ever been. Less trusting of the mages. After my experiences in Ferelden I believed that Greagoir had been wrong in his own treatment of the mages; too kind. Not suspicious enough. I am shamed that it took me so many years to see how many things were not right in Kirkwall. How what I saw as firm discipline was too often applied as unyielding harshness, even outright cruelty. How many more tranquil there were in Kirkwall, not just because there were so many more mages there to start with, but how much larger a portion of the total they made up. How much more tolerant of or actively involved in abuse of our charges too many of the other Knights were... I wish I could believe that Meredith was unaware of much of it, but I fear the truth is more likely that she simply turned a blind eye to it."

He paused again, then sighed and looked down at his hands, fingers linking together, wrists resting on upraised, wide-spread knees. "I am glad to be gone from Kirkwall. For all of that to be behind me at last."

They both sat in silence for a while, until finally Cullen looked up, and smiled weakly at Sebastian. "Whatever shall the two of us do now?"

Sebastian smiled back crookedly. "I don't know. Whatever presents itself, I suppose. We are both reasonably skilled with weapons. I suppose we could always seek work as guardsmen, or mercenaries."

Cullen grinned, looking amused. "Quite a fall down from being the Prince of Starkhaven."

Sebastian snorted. "I was never that. A prince, yes, not the Prince. In any case, is it not much the same thing as I did for Hawke all these years? Work for pay, killing people because I was told to do so, and paid to do so, not because it was necessarily the right or needful thing to do." It was his turn to sigh and look thoughtfully at the far horizon, it seemed. "I fell down years ago. It is just that it has taken me this long to recognize that I have hit bottom."

Cullen grunted. "My granfer had a saying about that."

Sebastian grinned again, briefly. "As did my own grandfather. Likely much the same one, I am thinking."

"Be flexible, boy, so when ye hit bottom, ye bounce right up again," Cullen said, in a thick accent.

Sebastian nodded. "At least once you've hit bottom, the only way left to go is up."

They both smiled at each other, then laughed.

"I miss my grandfather," Sebastian said thoughtfully after a while. "Of all the belongings I lost in Kirkwall, the one that stings most is my bow. It was his, you see, promised to me when I was but a child still. He's the one that taught me archery; the only one of my family who ever seemed to believe I'd ever amount to anything. The only one who..." he broke off. Cullen merely looked questioningly at him for a moment, then looked away again, giving him what little privacy was possible between the two of them, with no walls to withdraw behind. "The only one who ever told me he loved me," Sebastian said very quietly after a while, once he was sure he could voice the words without his voice breaking.

"I'm sorry," Cullen said softly after a minute. "That must have been... hard. If there was one thing I never doubted in my family, it was that I was loved, and wanted. I mentioned how proud my father was of me; he kept wanting to know if there was anything I needed, anything at all he could give me. I had to tell him a dozen times that the order would provide everything I needed from then on. Housing, food, clothing, training, armour, weapons... I remember he still sent a basket of apples to me that fall anyway, shipped all the way to the training house near Denerim from the trees on our farm. They tasted so good... like home."

Sebastian smiled, a touch bitterly. "I wish my father had sent me as thoughtful a present. I suppose it was thoughtful, in its own backhanded way, just not... not a kind one, as your father's was."

"Oh?"

"My armour. I had been a rogue and a libertine, before I was sent off against my will to join the chantry; quite good at picking locks and sneaking through shadows to end up in beds I shouldn't have been in, that sort of thing. The armour was the one gift he sent me in all my years after leaving home, delivered directly after I'd taken my initial vows."

Cullen blinked for a moment, thinking, then winced. "Oh. _Oh_. Shiny, noisy armour for a rogue."

Sebastian nodded. "And Andraste's face buckling my belt as tightly as any belt of chastity, yes. I don't think he could have been any more pointed about his... disapproval, of my previous lifestyle, than to have shouted the words in my face. Not that he didn't do that a time or three too, before he finally sent me away."

He fell silent for a while. "Completely inappropriate for a lay brother, too, another wedge driven between me and those who might otherwise have been willing to befriend me. I left it on a stand in my quarters for years; it was only after word came of the annihilation of my family that I finally wore it again. It was a statement, then... that no matter what else I might be, I was a prince of Starkhaven, and the deaths of my family deserved revenge."

He sighed, and looked at Cullen. "Hawke helped me to gain that revenge. It was... nothing to enjoy, I realized later. It lessened the pain and bitterness not at all. Only later did I realize that the biggest part of my anger was not against those who had slain my family, but at my family for having never accepted me, never being proud of me, dying without reconciling in some way with me. Being left behind by them. And so unregarded by even our enemies that no attempt was even made to kill me as well," he added, feeling the old bitterness again. "_That _is when I hit bottom, I think. I have been stuck down here ever since."

Cullen reached over and squeezed him arm comfortingly. Sebastian looked up, forced a smile. "I am glad to have left all that behind me as well. Whatever I do with my life from this point onwards... it is no longer for my family, or the chantry, or Hawke. It is for myself."

Cullen nodded. When they fell silent again this time, neither of them broke it, both lost in their separate thoughts for some hours of travel.

* * *

"I could get used to this," Sebastian said, lying down flat on the deck before taking another bite out of the pear in his hand, part of his supper from the supplies they carried in their packs. Their passage gave them a bit of desk space and a water ration, but didn't include food; it was a short enough trip that they hadn't needed to pick up any great supply of things, at least.

"Travel is only rarely this comfortable," Cullen pointed out, as he neatly cut a chunk off the end of a length of dry sausage with his belt knife before popping the morsel in his mouth. A couple of chews and he swallowed, then resumed speaking. "We would be unlikely to include things like fresh fruit if we were going any great distant."

Sebastian nodded. "Or fresh baked bread," he agreed, glancing at the small loaf of such sitting on the cloth spread between them. "I have travelled before, don't forget," he said, smiling in amusement.

Cullen smiled and nodded, then held out the sausage toward Sebastian. Sebastian shook his head, lifting the hand that still held his piece of fruit. Cullen continued slicing off bits of sausage to eat. "This is pleasant," he agreed after a while. "Sunny, but not too hot. Neither of us has any duties to attend to, any work we must be, any places we must go."

"No, we can just laze around and rest, or do whatever else we feel like."

"At least as long as it doesn't get in the way of or distract the sailors," Cullen said.

"There is that. I suppose sparring or archery practise are both right out of the question then." Sebastian said, then ate the rest of his pear in a single large bite, licking the juice from his fingers.

Cullen laughed softly. "No, I don't think the captain would appreciate either of those exercises. Not unless we were being boarded by pirates, anyway."

Sebastian snorted in amusement, then smiled. "There's one pirate I actually wouldn't mind encountering again."

Cullen gave him a mildly startled look. "That friend of Hawke's? With the knives and the, errr... surprising outfit?"

"Yes, Isabela. She was one of the few of Hawke's companions who ever treated me as a friend," Sebastian explained. "She reminded me a lot of a younger me, actually. And sometimes joked that she wished she'd known me then," he added, blushing a little. "She and Fenris were... close, especially the last few weeks before... Before. Anyway, if anyone might know where Fenris went to, it would be her."

Cullen gave him a measuring look. "You and he were close friends?"

"Friends, yes. I wonder a little, what's happened to him since. It would set my mind at rest, to know he was all right. I hope wherever he is, he is happy, but it's the not knowing that bothers me. Knowing only that he fled, without even a chance to take any of his belongings from the house... I cannot help wanting to know. Even if the news proved painful, I would rather know than not know."

Cullen nodded. "I can understand that. The days and weeks after the Ferelden circle tower fell, as the living and the dead were gradually found and identified... it was often the not knowing that was the worst. Given what the blood mages and abominations did to so many of the other mages, and especially the templars, there were many whose fate we could only guess at, the remains too... distorted, or too thoroughly destroyed, to ever truly identify." He looked down at the sausage still held in one hand, then grimaced and set it down on the cloth. "I hope you hear news of your friend some day."

"Thank you," Sebastian said quietly. "Aveline has promised to send word if she or Varric hear any word of Fenris... at least whether or not he is still alive, anyway, even if they can't tell me more."

Cullen gave him a sharp look. "If he has remained with Hawke and the apostate, you mean."

"Yes. If he's with her, they would be unlikely to tell me so. Or where. But I would be happy enough just to know he was well."

They put away the remains of their meal after that, then spread out their bedrolls and made themselves comfortable. It was not late enough to sleep yet, but the temperature on the open water was dropping quickly as the sun set; their bedding would at least keep them warm.

"This decking is making me miss the pallets in the templar training dormitories," Cullen said after a while.

Sebastian laughed softly. "The ones you complained were – what was it, again – ah, yes, _weren't much thicker then a poorly wadded quilt_."

Cullen grinned up at the darkening sky overhead. "Yes, those ones. Thin and lumpy, but at least marginally softer than lying on hard planks."

Sebastian nodded. "Of all the times I've roughed it in the last few years – those of us who trailed around after Hawke did a considerable amount of sleeping out under the stars or tent canvas instead of in nice soft beds, or even on lumpy cots – I will admit these planks are among the least comfortable of the impromptu beds I've had. I'd rather a nice beach; the sand at least takes the shape of your body, which isn't as bad."

Cullen snorted. "Leaves you with sand in unfortunate places the next morning, as I recall from the one or two times I ended up doing so myself."

Sebastian laughed. "Yes, even if you've done nothing worse than lie still on it. It's worse if you were foolish enough to do anything, um... more vigorous. As my younger self once learned, much to my distress. Also, sand flies bite. And _itch_."

That made Cullen laugh. "Maker! Well, I'm pleased to say I have never had to suffer through either of those particular experiences."

They fell silent again for a while, just lying there watching the stars come out. Both moons were still down, making for a very dark night, and making the stars seem all that much brighter, more vivid, in their arch across the sky.

Cullen sighed after a while. "I had forgotten how beautiful the night sky is," he said sleepily. "I was always too busy at the Gallows to ever look up at it. Not like I did when I was a boy."

"It is one of my favourite sights," Sebastian agreed softly. "One of the most beautiful of the Maker's many works."

Cullen smiled. After a while, they slept.

* * *

Cullen woke feeling sore and stiff. And cold, except where a warm weight was pressed against his right side; sometime during the night, the space between himself and Sebastian had vanished. He flushed, and carefully shifted away, knowing it had likely been only the coldness of the night that had caused them to move together, and yet still embarrassingly aware of the inappropriateness of it. They were both men of faith and sworn to the Maker's service; they both had taken vows of chastity. And besides, the social distance between them was... vast. At least going by their births, anyway; in the chantry hierarchy the two of them were on a much more even footing, with Cullen the higher ranked of the pair if anything. Yet he could not forget that the man sleeping so quietly beside him was born a prince of Starkhaven, and he a mere farmer's son from barbarous backwater Ferelden.

Sebastian yawned and stretched a little later, bright blue eyes blinking opened, as shocking in their intensity of colour as they always were on first sight. He looked around, then groaned as he moved to sit up. "Maker's breath! This decking is not a bed I'd recommend to my friends."

Cullen smiled, and sat up as well. "How about your enemies?"

"Oh, gladly. The resultant stiffness and soreness would certainly give me an advantage in any physical battle afterwards," Sebastian agreed, smiling. "Highever by later today, you said?"

Cullen nodded. "Unless we run into weather that holds us back."

Sebastian smiled. "I will prey for clear skies the rest of the day then, and that tonight we might sleep in real beds again. Or even cots, as long as they're not as hard as these planks."

Cullen dragged his pack over within reach, folding back the flap. "Breakfast?" he suggested, drawing out the cloth still wrapped around the remains of their supper the night before.

"Once I've dealt with other issues first," Sebastian said, grimacing, and rose before heading off to find a suitable place along the railings to empty bowels and bladder. Cullen took a turn when he'd returned, after which they breakfasted on much the same foods they'd dined off of the night before.

The day passed slowly, some of it in further conversation – mostly in Sebastian asking questions about Ferelden, and Cullen answering them – and a lot of long silences while they each sat lost in thought. Breakfast ended their supply of fresh fruit; lunch finished off the bread and cheese. They were debating whether or not to make an early supper of the small amount of hard tack and jerky they had left, when the lookout called out to indicate that Highever was finally in sight. Both men rose to their feet to peer over the roof of the deck-house and watch the approach.

A little over an hour later they disembarked, wearing their armour once more and carrying their packs. "Well. I suppose the first thing we should do is look for an inn to stay the night," Cullen said.

Sebastian nodded. "Here by the docks, or somewhere else, do you think?"

"Elsewhere," Cullen quickly suggested. "The dockside establishments will mostly be of the cheapest sort; cheap in what accommodations they provide that is, not necessarily in their cost in coin, many of them catering to trade that is, err... more likely to be by the hour than by the night. If I recall correctly, there are some small inns and hostelries near the city gates, where merchants and farmers most often stay. Simple places, but with nicer beds, cheaper overnight rates, and fewer bugs."

Sebastian grinned. "Lead on, then."

Cullen led slowly, it having been years since he was last here, and the dockside not being an area he'd ever frequented enough to be familiar with; too young to do so the couple of times he'd accompanied his father to market in Highever, and then later he'd been a templar, his vows keeping such places as the wharf-side inns and bordellos closed to him. He eventually found his way to the main market square, and from there it was much easier to make their way to the inns near the gate that he remembered.

The buildings seemed much smaller than he remembered them as being, but then he's been smaller himself the last time he'd ever been here. And doubtless they loomed larger in memory than in real life. He wondered what else would seem smaller and shabbier to him than memory painted it.

The inns were busy, and it wasn't until they'd tried three of them that they finally found one with a room still available; a single room, with just one bed, though it was large enough for two. It being a choice between sharing a bed, or recrossing the city and hoping for better luck back at wharf-side, they elected to share the bed. The room was at least clean, smelling of nothing worse than the straw and herbs scattered on the floor and stuffed in the mattress – the herbs being ones that were reputed to keep down such pests as bedbugs – with a glazed window looking out over the street in front of the inn, and currently admitting a golden glow of late afternoon sunlight.

They left their packs in the room, locking the door behind them, but kept their armour, weapons and money on their persons, and went down to the common room in search of supper. A few coppers was enough to purchase them each a trencher of bread piled with mutton stew and vegetables, the mutton a little on the greasy and stringy side but cooked with onions and herbs until tender and flavourful, the vegetables a mixture of carrots and parnips that had been boiled and then glazed with a dollop of maple syrup and spices.

"Not as good as the beef stew the other day," Cullen observed as he dug in with his fingers, no spoon or fork having been provided.

"But delicious enough," Sebastian observed, taking a small three-tined fork and a spoon out of one of his belt pouches, both of polished metal with handles of polished horn, and setting to as well. Cullen admired the implements, thinking he should carry a fork and spoon of his own as well; he'd forgotten how few places provided cutlery for their customers to use, and years as a templar had gotten him used to such things just being there to use without needing to carry his own.

"We should stop at the market before leaving town tomorrow," Cullen pointed out. "To restock on travel rations if nothing else."

Sebastian nodded. "Would it still be open now? It looked busy when we passed through it on the way here."

"Likely," Cullen said, and signalled to one of the serving girls, who assured the pair of them that the market would indeed be open for some hours yet.

After they'd finished their meal, including a dessert of apple tarts, they returned to the market square. A few stalls and shops had closed for the day, but the majority of them were still open. They wandered around, picking up more travel rations first of all. They still had hard tack and some jerky, but purchased additional things like dried-cured sausage, hard spice cookies and dried fruit, as well as small quantities of oatmeal, barley, and beans. Sebastian found a lightweight set of small pots that nested each into the other, and happily purchased it, while Cullen tracked down some cutlery for himself, a double-ended implement with a spoon on one end and a two-tined fork at the other.

When he found Sebastian again the man was looking at a display of little amulets. Many were just simple decorative carvings – animals, mostly, some shaped like leaves or flowers – as well as a lot of ones with religious imagery; the sun in glory, the flaming sword and so on, in every material from cheaply stamped rough clay disks to precious metals and gems. "Thinking of buying one?" Cullen asked.

Sebastian glanced his way, and smiled. "No. Just thinking of a locket of my mother's that Hawke had recovered from some mercenaries and later returned to me. The only memento I had of her and my father." He nodded to the vendor, and moved off, Cullen falling into step beside him. "I wore it myself for a while. Keeping it close to my heart, you understand. And for a while after I stopped wearing it, I kept it in one of my belt pouches. Eventually I stopped carrying it at all, and left it in my room; the locket really only had value for me because of it being a tie to my family. And now it is gone, and suddenly I miss having it, and wish I'd kept it always on my person. Between that and leaving the Marches, losing grandfather's bow... it is like my last tie to Starkhaven has finally frayed. I'm a free man, and that... is rather frightening, in some ways. What will I do now?"

Cullen smiled crookedly. "Whatever presents itself, I thought you'd said yesterday."

Sebastian laughed. "So I did. Easier to say than to actually do, perhaps. I wonder if this is what Fenris felt like, a little, when he first became a free man; that there were so many choices that it was impossible to chose. And how could he decide what to chose, anyway, having no experience of them?"

Cullen nodded. "I know what you mean. I can think of things like becoming a mercenary or a caravan guard or a soldier, something that makes use of my fighting skills, but I do not know what the life of any of those is truly like, or how well it would actually suit me. And of the things I do know... farming like my father, or being a templar again... I do not know that I would want to ever resume either. Farming wouldn't be all that bad, I suppose, though it's a hard life."

"And being a templar wasn't?"

Cullen smiled again. "Hard in a different way."

Sebastian nodded, then suddenly stopped, and smiled. "Oh, look... books!" he said, and plunged down a narrow laneway between stalls, to a small book seller's shop on the edge of the square, not a stall but an actual storefront with glass-paned windows. Cullen followed.

It was quiet inside, empty except for a clerk perched on a tall stool at a counter near the front of the store, and a well-dressed woman browsing the shelves further in back. The clerk gave the pair of them a dubious look, but Sebastian had already stopped and was pulling a volume from a shelf. "Look, Genitivi's travelogues... I don't think I've seen a bookseller's yet that didn't have collections of them. They make a small fortune for the chantry in sales each year."

"Not a small fortune for Brother Genitivi himself?" Cullen asked, looking curiously at the slim volumes, apparently currently available in a choice of burgundy or hunter green leather bindings.

"No, the chantry funds his travels, gives him a generous allowance for room and board and so forth, and does the copying and binding. In return they keep the lion's share of whatever income the books bring in. And see to it that if he gets himself into trouble somewhere, he's gotten back out of it again. I heard they had to ransom him back from the Qunari once after he'd gone travelling in the north to try and gather material for a book about the fog warriors of Seheron."

Cullen snorted. "Seheron? He must be a madman to go there."

Sebastian grinned. "Eccentric, anyway. Oh, and here's some Orlesian romances. My mother was passionately addicted to these. They all have almost the exact same plot, I'm told."

They wandered the store briefly, Sebastian looking at several books but in the end sighing and picking out only a single small limp-bound volume covered in thin grey-green sueded leather; poetry from Starkhaven, by an obscure writer of the previous century. "My grandfather used to read me his works," Sebastian explained, as he led the way to the counter to pay for the book.

There was a display of chapbooks and penny dreadfuls by the counter. Cullen glanced at them and started to turn away, then looked again, frowning. "Sebastian, look," he said, pointing out the author's name on several of them.

Sebastian gave a short bark of laughter, then grinned. "Varric's work does get around. Just be glad it's not something by Isabela. Though knowing her subject matter, it's more likely kept under the counter, or locked away in back and only available on request."

Cullen gave him an enquiring look. Sebastian glanced at the clerk who had suddenly acquired a rather poker-faced expression, then leaned closer and stage whispered, "One hundred and one uses for a phallic tuber."

Cullen could feel his own face reddening. Sebastian grinned, looking amused. The clerk was still maintaining a stuff expression, though he was biting his lower lip and had suspicious crinkles around his eyes. Cullen suddenly laughed. "I don't believe I'd wish a copy of that."

"Neither would I, truthfully," Sebastian agreed, turning back to pay for his poetry, then glanced at the clerk and smiled. "Though I have to say I much admired some of Tethras' turns of phrase in his 'Hard in Hightown' series."

The clerk allowed a faint smile to cross his face. "We do carry bound editions of his work, in addition to the serializations, ser," he said, and tipped his head. "Over there."

Sebastian smiled, and went over to look at them after the clerk had wrapped and handed him his book. "Have you truly not read any of his stories?" Sebastian asked Cullen curiously.

"No, they're not something I was ever interested in, though I know many of the other templars and the mages enjoyed them. Have you really read them yourself?"

"Oh, yes," Sebastian said. "They're harmless entertainment, for the most part. Not really all that much different than the Orlesian romances, except with less masks and gowns and sword fighting, and rather more real fights and sex."

Cullen could feel himself blushing again, and looked away. One title caught his eye, and he reached out, taking it from the shelf to take a closer look at it.

"What have you got there?" Sebastian asked, and leaned closer to see. "Oh. Oh _n_o. He promised me that he wouldn't ever actually publish that one!"

Cullen laughed, and stepped over to the counter, grinning broadly. "I'll take this one," he told the clerk.

"A Prince on the Minanter? Excellent choice, ser," the clerk murmured. "Fifteen silvers," he said, and set about wrapping it up while Cullen counted out the money for it, ignoring the sputtering sounds Sebastian was making. He didn't really need the book, but having seen Sebastian's reaction to it he certainly couldn't pass up the opportunity either.

"Please tell me you're not actually going to read that," Sebastian said once they were on their way back to the inn.

"After paying fifteen silvers for it? Of course I'm going to read it. I'm sure some harmless entertainment is just what I need," he replied in as innocent a manner as he could manage.

Sebastian laughed, then smiled at him. "Well... just realize that most of what Varric writes is exaggeration. And it was years ago; I'm not that foolish young man any more."

"So you're saying there's some truth in what I'll read in it, then?"

Sebastian obviously hesitated before answering, his cheeks flushing with colour. "Maybe. A little."

Cullen smiled. "I might ask you which bits are truth, later."

"You're a cruel and evil man. Though not as cruel and evil as Varric."

Cullen laughed.

* * *

Cullen rolled over, trying not to shake the bed too much with the movement. Despite how comfortable the bed was compared to the decking of the boat the night before, he was finding it difficult to sleep. Sebastian was clearly not having the same problem; he was soundly asleep, lying sprawled out on his back with his right hand resting palm-up by his pillow on the bed between them.

Apart from sharing the decking the night before, it was years since Cullen had last slept near someone else, and even that had never been in the same bed. He remembered how they'd woken this morning, Sebastian pressed warmly against him, and felt himself colouring slightly at the memory, and eyeing the dip in the mattress between them dubiously. They'd carefully kept to their own sides of the bed on retiring for the night, but he didn't doubt that the dip would mean they'd end up in much the same position again the following morning.

Not that it meant anything, of course. They were both sworn to vows of chastity. Though it could be argued that those vows didn't necessarily bind them any more, now that they'd left the chantry's service. Still... the thought made him uncomfortably aware of the other man's presence, of the sensuality of his features. He had lips that could only be described as lush, and while his features had taken on a slightly more chiseled appearance in the weeks after the chantry's destruction, they were filling out again. His face was made for curves, from the cupid's bow of his lips to the long delicate arc of his eyelashes against his softly curved cheeks. A handsome man; Cullen remembered overhearing a pair of the female recruits discussing him once, quite enthusiastically discussing both the attractiveness of his face and how delicious they'd thought his voice was.

It was a nice voice, Cullen would have agreed. Deep, and with that lovely burring Starkhaven accent. He remembered attending a mass at the chapel once, where Sebastian had sung a section of Chant of Light, and how beautiful his voice had been...

He sighed, softly, and turned over again, looking away from the other man and up at the ceiling instead. He was thinking inappropriate thoughts, he told himself firmly, and forced himself to think about other things instead, mentally reviewing the route between Highever and his father's farm. It wouldn't do for him to mislead the two of them.

* * *

They set out early the next morning, after a hearty breakfast of sweetened spiced oatmeal, whole boiled duck eggs, and fried ham. It was a warm day, and humid, though the latter became less of a problem the further inland they travelled. The roads near Highever were moderately busy with traffic, though by mid-morning that had mostly disappeared; they were out of the coastal flatlands and well up into the heights that separated Highever and the rolling grasslands of the Bannorn proper, Cullen explained.

Sebastian found the landscape reminded him a little of some of the more mountainous areas of Starkhaven and Kirkwall, through the plants were noticeably different; fewer hardwood trees and more conifers, especially as their altitude climbed. "Steep country," he observed as they stopped for a mid-day break, moving off the road to perch on a rock and eat some of their rations, looking back the way they'd come.

Cullen nodded. "It's even worse to the west of here. The plateau that Lake Calenhad is on stretches all the way from the Hinterlands in the south to the Waking Sea in the north; where some of the water escapes down to the sea is a spectacular drop, the outfall is more waterfalls and steep rapids than actual river. I remember taking the bridge across the gorge that way once, along the old Imperial highway; not for the faint of heart, even as well-built as it is you can feel the bridge tremble in high winds. Most of the drainage is off to the east though; the Drakon river valley. These coastal mountains are the high edge of the plains; they tilt to the southeast from here, until you reach the Southron Hills, and all drained by the Drakon."

"You know a lot about the geography of Ferelden."

Cullen smiled and shrugged. "I studied it a little, in my training. And I've walked over a lot of it, when I was a templar here."

Sebastian looked curiously at him. "You were a hunter?"

"No. No, I was just given a lot of courier duty, carrying messages around between all the places where there were templars – the training establishments and monasteries, the chantries, the circle. And escort duty; back then the Ferelden Circle still allowed a lot of the more trusted mages out, especially the healers, but they had to travel under escort. Usually a senior and junior templar. I was still the junior templar back then."

Sebastian nodded. "I did some escorting myself after first joining the chantry; escorting healer priests down to tend to the poor of Lowtown and the like, though properly speaking i suppose they should be referred to as herbalists, not healers; they had no magic. I suspect I was assigned it as much because Elthina thought it would teach me more about humility as because it was a common assignment to give to lay brothers."

Cullen grinned. "Did it work? The teaching you humility part?"

Sebastian laughed, then dusted off his hands of the last crumbs of his share of their luncheon, and rose to his feet. "Perhaps not as well as Elthina might have wished, but yes, I learned rather more humility than I'd possessed beforehand. The healer I was told off to escort the most was this crotchety older priest, a gifted midwife. Being a man I was usually told off to entertain and look after the existing children while the latest one was being born. Looking after a pack of assorted children of all ages for a day or two is a good lessen for any man, I think."

"A day or two?" Cullen asked, startled, as he rose as well, and the pair resumed their journey.

"Aye, the lying-ins were sometimes long. The worst lasted almost three days, but Mother Karole pulled her through it all right. The shortest lasted under an hour; triplets, the tiniest babies I'd ever seen. Born early, but two of the three lived to see their name-day. And grew like weeds, later," Sebastian added, smiling fondly.

"You like children."

"Yes, I do. Not enough to really wish for some of my own, though I suppose if I had returned to Starkhaven and taken the throne I'd have had to put aside my vows and fathered some. But certainly enough to understand why people do want them. There is something... something very _special_, about holding a living creature small enough to cup in two hands – one hand, for the triplets – and know that it will grow to be an adult some day, with its own thoughts, feelings, desires, dreams." Sebastian glanced over at Cullen. "What about you? Did you never wish children?"

Cullen wrinkled his nose. "Yes and no. When I was younger, back on the farm, I certainly didn't see anything wrong with the idea of someday growing up and marrying and having a brood of children of my own. And I liked my sister's children well enough. But I could never really picture myself as a father. It was no hardship for me, when I joined the templar order, to take a vow of chastity." He glanced at Sebastian. "Was that hard for you?"

"Oh, yes," Sebastian said softly, and smiled. "I'll even confess that there are times I miss that part of my life, at least a little. Though in looking back, what I mainly see is how... how _empty_ most of those relationships were. It was just sex, without love, only rarely with anything even approaching real affection. Mostly done with the opposite of affection, in some ways... not only did I care nothing for my partner in such activities, but I was engaging in them to spite my father." Sebastian glanced at Cullen. "Did you ever...?"

Cullen flushed. "No. A stolen kiss or two, before I went off to templar training. Nothing since. They take us young for that, you know; I'd never found anyone to share that sort of thing with, before, and afterwards... well, you were in the chantry, you know how it might not be forbidden but it's certainly discouraged. A distraction from our commitment to the Maker."

Sebastian nodded. "Aye, I know."

* * *

By the time they camped that night they had already passed through the worst of the coastal mountains – more like hills, compared to real mountains like the Vimmark mountains north of Kirkwall ,or the vast peaks and ridges of the Frostbacks to the west – and were overlooking the grasslands of the Bannorn.

"Explain to me the difference between the Bannorn and a bannorn," Sebastian said, frowning slightly, as he stirred a pottage of barley and dried meat – goat, Cullen thought from the pungent smell of it – over their small cookfire. "I'm not very familiar with the system used here in Ferelden, other than knowing it differs greatly from most of the Free Marches."

"It's simple enough. A bannorn is the lands belonging to a single bann. The Bannorn is so-named because it's a vast quiltwork of bannorns, some of them large estates containing many farms and a town or village or two, some as small as a single largish farm worked by one family. Some of the bannorn in this area closest to Highever itself are directly responsible to the Teyrn of Highever, but mostly they report to an Arl or Arlessa, who reports to either Highever here in the north, or directly to the crown if the arling is further to the south, outside Highever's bounds. Highever's vassal lands include the Arling of Amaranthine, the Arling of West Hill, and the Arling of Waking Sea; Amaranthine and West Hill include much of the northern Bannorn. Being mostly farmers, the banns of the Bannorn tend to have similar interests when it come to politics, so even though they're officially parts of an assortment of different areas, the Bannorn as a whole tends to act and vote as a unit within the Landsmeet, often at cross-purposes to their own Arls or the Teryn. They can be very stubborn."

"Conservative?" Sebastian guessed.

"Yes, very. But loyal to the line of Calenhad, since King Calenhad Theirin, the founder of the line, was born in Highever. One of their own, as far as they're concerned," Cullen said, with a ghost of a smile.

After the meal had been eaten they both settled down to care for their gear and then read their books. Cullen would have guessed right away that the protagonist of the book he'd purchased was based on Sebastian, even with the character's name changed to Octavian and his description altered; paler of skin, with freckles and red hair, instead of the darker skin and brown hair that he actually had. The piercing blue eyes were the same though, and the character's background in the mythical kingdom – name also changed – along the Minanter was quite recognizable from what little he knew of Sebastian's history.

The first chapter set up the character, and he found it quite enjoyable reading. The second chapter... well, clearly Varric Tethras didn't believe in wasting too much time before getting to the action. Octavian's visit to a dockside whorehouse soon had Cullen turning bright red and hastily closing the book. And feeling vaguely ashamed that he found the descriptions so overwhelming; he might not have slept with anyone himself, but he wasn't ignorant, not after all those years among much more coarsely-minded templars and the mages as well. Not to mention the desire demons... he cut off that train of thought quickly, having found it better over the years to avoid ever thinking of those few terrible days in their hands.

He rolled on his side, back to Sebastian, and sought to calm his thoughts, having to fall back on old exercises such as mentally working through lengthy passages from the Chant of Light, until finally his thoughts quieted enough again to allow him to sleep.

* * *

"That should be my father's farm over there," Cullen said, pointing at a cluster of building only just visible on the far horizon. "Assuming he is still alive and still owns it."

Sebastian nodded, hitching his pack to a more comfortable position. "About an hour's walk, would you say?"

"About that, yes," Cullen agreed. A few steps later he realized he was staring at the man again. Over the course of their several days of travel since Highever he'd been spending the evenings slowly working his way through the book he'd bought, often having to stop and put it aside during the more overheated scenes in it. Yet he found he couldn't put it aside entirely; Varric did have a nice way of turning a phrase, and the adventuring bits that happened in between the more steamy scenes were certainly well written and entertaining on their own, but... as much as parts of it disturbed him, he couldn't help feeling curious. "About that book..." he abruptly said.

Sebastian glanced sideways at him, looking amused. "Varric's book? What about it?"

"You'd hinted that some parts of it were true?"

Sebastian grimaced, then looked away, focusing on the road ahead of them. "Some parts, yes."

"The twins?"

Sebastian laughed. "Yes, that actually happened. Though the pair of them didn't look nearly as much alike as Varric describes them; still, being sandwiched in between them was... a memorable experience." He fell silent, cheeks colouring slightly, then glanced at Cullen again. "You're redder than I am. Is it that I had more than one person in my bed, or that one of them was male?"

Cullen felt his own colour deepening even as he smiled. "A little of both, I suppose. One can't grow up in a templar dormitory or work around mages for long without being well aware of, um, all the possibilities, but growing up here in the Bannorn... well, I did say that people here are conservative. That includes in matters of the bed chamber. In general relationships of that sort are not as open or acceptable in Ferelden as they are in the north. Or in the west, for that matter; I know in Orlais they're seen as almost a matter of course, at least among the nobility."

Sebastian nodded. "Aye, that they are. Starkhaven is more varied; the uppermost nobility is staunchly conservative on such things, but some of the lower nobles and the merchant class and so on are fine with them. Perhaps that's why my father hated it so much when he learned that I sometimes slept with other men; because there it was regarded as more of a perversion of the lower classes than something any true noble would indulge themselves in. Though judging by the number of noblemen I recognized in the brothels that catered to such tastes – though they were always in disguise, you understand – well, I think it was one of those things that many nobles publicly derided and privately enjoyed." He grinned at Cullen. "I did not think you could get any more red-faced than you already were. Perhaps it would be best if we changed the subject."

"Perhaps, yes," Cullen agreed. "I would rather not return home looking like a freshly ripened tomato."

Sebastian laughed, then gestured at the landscape around them, much of it fields full of grain. "It is not much longer until the harvest here, isn't it?"

Cullen nodded. "Yes. Growing seasons are shorter here in the south, and we can only grow one crop a year of most things, apart from fast-growing crops like lettuces. But at least we almost never have droughts; the Frostbacks and Lake Calenhad ensure that Ferelden is a well-watered land. The Bannorn produces enough grain and vegetables to feed all of Ferelden plus export a lot to Orlais and the north. And yes, this grain looks almost ripe enough to be harvested," he added, running an eye over the fields they were passing between. "A week, perhaps two depending on the weather, and these fields will be full of people gathering and gleaning."

"Does everyone gather in common here, or is each farmer responsible for hiring people to gather in their fields?"

"It varies. There are migrants who can be hired seasonally to help work the fields, and in many of the more populated areas, where there's small villages and such, the people will come out and help with each other's harvests. A lot of places depend on a mix of the two. What about in Starkhaven, how is it done there – or do you not know?" Cullen belatedly remembered that he was speaking to a prince, not another farmer's son, and that Sebastian might not know.

Sebastian smiled. "We do not have as wide-spread fields, nor as many isolated farms. Most land belongs to the nobles, not the farmers who work it, so the pattern there is to have a village or hamlet – sometimes a small town – surrounded by fields that all work in common. Everyone cooperates on everything from planting to harvesting." He fell silent for a few strides, then continued, in a softer voice. "My grandfather believed that a noble should understand the work his tenants did, or how else would he be able to know if the work was done well. I spent time working the fields myself, and many other jobs as well." He looked up, and smiled. "The blisters from it are long gone, but I still remember what it is like to help plant a field, or the burn of muscles at the end of a long day of gleaning."

Cullen smiled at him in turn. They were almost at the laneway to the farm now, he saw, a dusty narrow strip of road bordered by a row of scraggly-looking fruit trees. They'd almost never produced enough to sell any, but he could remember his mother picking cherries, pears and apples in season, to store or preserve for their own use, and the taste of that basket of apples his father had sent to him that first fall. The memory was enough to make his mouth water.

He turned off down the laneway, Sebastian following. They hadn't gone far along it before a dog started barking, warning the farm of strangers approaching. By the time they were halfway to the house, a tall figure had stepped out of the door of the nearby barn, a basket over one arm, her hand raised to shade her eyes as she looked to see who it was. Cullen slowed and stopped, staring as he recognized her.

His sister, looking almost eerily like his mother had the last time he'd seen her, apart from having their father's height. Suddenly she stiffened. "Cullen?" she called out, then set down the basket, hiked up her long skirts and ran toward him.

He stumbled forward a few paces, eyes filling with tears of mixed joy and relief to see her again after so many years apart. "Helen," he called back in turn, and then she flung herself at him, almost bowling him right off his feet, hugging him so tightly he could have sworn his ribs creaked. He laughed, a little shakily, and hugged her back just as hard, only now realizing how certain some part of him had felt that he'd arrive to find the farm a ruin, or in someone else's hands, all his family long-dead.

Why had he never written to them, he found himself wondering. In all these years, why had he never tried to find out if they'd survived the Blight year or not?

Helen seemed to have similar thoughts, since the first thing she did after finally ending the hug was to slam her fist almost bruisingly hard into his upper arm. "You _ass!_ We thought you were _dead!_ Where have you been all this time!? We'd heard about the mage rebellion, that so many had died..." Her face had gone pale, except for a flush of angry colour high on each cheek.

"Ow! Sorry. Kirkwall... I was transferred to Kirkwall afterwards."

"_Kirkwall!_ And you couldn't write and let us know you were fine?"

"I'm sorry. It's... it's a long story," he said, as humbly as he could. "How is everyone? Mother? Father?"

Helen's face fell. "Father died, during the Blight year. We'd had to flee the farm for a while; it was cold and wet and he took a bad cold, and then his heart gave out. He's buried near the road a few miles out from Amaranthine."

"Mother?"

Helen smiled crookedly, shrugged, one shoulder lifting higher than the other. "Inside. She'll be glad to see you, if she remembers who you are. She's gone wandering in her wits, since then. She's old, Cully," she said, then looked past him. "Who's this?" she asked.

Cullen flushed, ashamed to have so quickly forgotten Sebastian's presence. "A friend of mine from Kirkwall..."

Sebastian quickly stepped forward and smiled sunnily at Helen. "I'm Sebastian, late of the Kirkwall chantry. A pleasure to meet you." He dipped a polite bow to her, then darted a quick look at Cullen as he straightened that Cullen easily read; Sebastian didn't want his surname mentioned. He supposed that made sense; even here the name "Vael" was likely to be recognized, and it would change how people treated him. Helen would be less likely to make any special fuss if she didn't know.

Helen smiled back at him. "Any friend of my brother's must be a friend of mine as well," she said warmly. "Come inside the two of you, and I'll put the kettle on." She glanced over toward the barn. "Devon! Finish the milking and then come to the house!"

"Yes, Ma!" a voice could faintly be heard calling back. She detoured over to retrieve her basket before leading them into the house.

Their mother had aged considerably since Cullen had last seen her, some years before the Blight. Her dark blonde hair had been streaked with enough silver even then to be visible against the gold; now it was all white, and thinning. She looked smaller than he remembered, sitting in a chair near the fire, and thinner, her cheeks gaunt and eyes unfocused, even when he crouched down by the chair and set his hand gently on hers. "Mother?" he said softly.

Her eyes wandered to him, studied his face for a while. She muttered something, too quite for him to make out, then went back to watching the fire, leaning forward after a minute to stir the pot of beans simmering over it.

"She doesn't talk or do much any more," Helen said quietly. "Or recognize most people, though she sometimes thinks my Lorn is you. But she hasn't forgotten how to cook."

Cullen nodded, jerkily, and rose to his feet, swiping moisture from his eyes. Helen stepped closer and gave him a one-armed hug. "Sit," she said. "I'll make tea."

Sebastian and Cullen sat down at the table. The same long plank table he remembered from his childhood, a little more timeworn and scratched, surrounded by much the same mismatched collection of chairs and benches. He reached underneath, fingers feeling the underside, and smiled as he found the 'C' roughly carved into the underside of it. Mother had been a town merchant's daughter before marrying their father, and had her letters, which she'd made sure all her own children learned as well. He could remember sitting beside her at this very table, leaning against her arm as he laboriously read a passage out of the one book she'd had, a copy of the Chant of Light. He looked across the room, and sure enough, there the old volume was on its usual shelf, wedged between a stone jar full of dried flowers and the teetering stack of cheaply bound ledgers that were the accounts for the farm. She'd taught them that, too, how to work their numbers and keep proper records of things.

It was strange to be home again, surrounded by things he knew and yet everything so changed. He remembered Devon as being just a toddler, but he'd be... Maker, in his early teens at least by now. "How is everyone else?" he asked.

Helen smiled and gave that odd one-armed shrug again as she hung the kettle over the fire to heat. "We're doing all right. Had a fever year a couple of years after the Blight; I lost Jeb and Tilly to it. And then a year or two later Patrick decided he didn't want to be a farmer all his life after all. Left me and the kids, and me pregnant again at the time," she said bitterly. "Someone told me they saw him in Highever later, dressed like a sailor. But the farm is mine, and some day it'll be Devon's, so good riddance to him I say."

Cullen winced. Jeb had been her oldest son; Tilly her only daughter, still a babe in arms the last he'd seen of the family. "How many kids now?" he asked; she'd been pregnant when he'd last seen her, too.

She smiled crookedly, then turned away to take down mugs and the canister of tea leaves. "Three. Devon you'll remember, Lorn I had just after you last saw me. That final pregnancy turned out to be twin girls, but only one lived. Cassy... you'll see her when Devon comes in. I was too sick at first and then too busy afterwards to look after her much, so Devon did instead. She follows him around like a chick after its mother."

"I'm sorry," Cullen said sombrely. "I'd thought Patrick was a good man."

"He was, once, just... people change, Cully. He was never the same after we lost Jeb and Tilly. Loved them too much, I suppose. And me not enough, after."

She touched their mother's shoulder. "Let me know when the kettle boils, Ma," she said, then came over and joined them at the table. "It's _good_ to see you again. So what happened to you? Why did you never write us?"

Cullen sighed, and glanced at Sebastian, whom he'd never really talked to about this either, other than the very edges of it, then looked down at the table. "It's... well, you said you'd heard about what happened at the tower?"

"Yes. And thought you among the dead! What happened?"

"I didn't die, obviously. I was taken prisoner by some of the blood mages, along with some other templars. A lot of mages don't think much of templars at the best of times, and... well. It got pretty ugly. Eventually I was the only one left alive, of the group I'd been in. The blood mages were allied with demons, they..." He paused and flushed. "You've heard of desire demons? I was at their mercy, trapped in dreams that they shaped. Every desire I'd ever held, anything or anyone I'd ever wanted, every act I'd ever imagined... it was all used against me, over and over again, trying to break me to their will. And eventually, I was freed. But... changed. Very changed, and not what I'd call for the better. Greagoir decided it would be best for me to go elsewhere, away from what remained of the Ferelden Circle and the memories I had of my time there. So I was sent to Kirkwall, and have been there ever since. I did well there, but... well, I'm sure the news must have reached here by now of what hapepned to the chantry and the Gallows."

"Oh, Cully," Helen said, sounding heartbroken, and reached across the table to take his hand in hers. "Why didn't you let us know? Did you think we wouldn't care."

"No, it wasn't that," Cullen hastily reassured her. "It's... one of the things I desired was that my family, that all of you, were alive and save, especially after word of the Blight had reached us. That was one of the desires they used against me. I saw you and father and mother and the children die a hundred times over, in a hundred terrible ways. Or received word of your deaths, by letter or messengers... so many times. I didn't always know what was true or false memories any more, by the time I was finally rescued. I didn't want to risk writing, only to find out..." He broke off, shaking his head and blinking back tears.

"To find out that we were dead after all," Helen said softly, understanding.

"Yes... as long as I didn't _know_, I could believe the memories were likely false. And if they were true, I didn't want to know. Not then, anyway, and by the time I did start to care again... well, it had been too long. Years. I couldn't bring myself to write," he said softly, looking down at his hands where they rested on the table in front of him, eyes filling with tears.

"Kettle's boiling," their mother called out.

Helen rose, leaning down to briefly kiss his forehead, as she'd done when comforting him when he was a small child, and fetched the kettle, pouring out water into the waiting mugs. He'd regained his composure by the time she'd put away the kettle and returned with honey to sweeten the tea, and a plate of fruit tarts to eat; a choice of gooseberry and blackberry, likely from the bushes he remembered as growing wild further down the road. They'd used to go berrying there together as children, before she married.

"Can you stay for a while?" Helen asked hopefully. "Or are you and your friend just passing through?"

"We've no plans," Sebastian spoke up, while Cullen was still trying to figure out an answer to that. "I have no objections to staying for a while, if Cullen wants to and if it wouldn't be any burden on you."

Helen smiled warmly at Sebastian. "It would be no burden; the opposite, if anything, it being too many years since I last saw and spoke with Cullen. I'm sure we have more catching up to do that just a few hours talk would cover."

"I'd like to stay, at least a little while," Cullen admitted. "I could help with the harvest, at least..."

"I could help too," Sebastian agreed.

Devon came into the house just then, carrying a bucket in each hand. He was a well-grown young man, Cullen saw, and hastily counted years in his head. Fourteen or fifteen years old now, old enough to do a man's work and be thinking of courting. The little girl following at his heels, carrying a half-empty bucket with both hands and obvious effort, was much younger... no longer a toddler, but still with the well-rounded look of the very young.

"Who's this?" Devon asked, eyeing the two of them suspiciously, as he lowered the buckets to the floor in one corner of the room.

Helen laughed. "I suppose you were too young to really remember him; this is my brother – your uncle Cullen."

Devon looked closely at Cullen, then suddenly smiled. "I remember... you gave me the horse."

Cullen smiled, remembering the toy... carved of wood, and cleverly jointed so that it could be posed. "I did, yes. And this is Cassy?"

"Yeah," Devon said.

Cassy, meanwhile, had put down her own bucket, and spotted the plate full of tarts, and bee-lined over to the table to stand with her hands and chin resting on the edge, looking hopefully at the plate of them. "Can I 'ave one?" she asked.

"Yes, you may each have one," Helen told the children. Devon darted over and grabbed one of each, handing a blackberry tart to Cassy and keeping the gooseberry for himself, most of it vanishing in a single large bit.

"Devon, Cullen and his friend – Sebastian – will be staying with us for a while. Why don't you show Sebastian where he can put his things... Cullen, would you rather a room in the bunkhouse, or the old loft?"

"The loft is fine," Cullen agreed, knowing just how crowded the small house must already be, and that the loft was a quieter space than the bunkhouse would soon be, once the seasonal workers began arriving to help with harvest.

"Good. Devon, take Cullen's pack out there for him, and stop and wash your hands on the way back; supper soon."

Sebastian drank off the last of his tea and rose to his feet, following Devon away without protest, Cassy trailing along after the pair.

"So, this friend of yours... just a friend, or a _friend?_" Helen asked, one eyebrow arching, as she began clearing the table again.

"Just a friend. He was a brother in the Chantry in Kirkwall, until it was destroyed. We're both... we're both at loose ends now. I don't think I'm going to return to being a templar again; too much has happened, most of it very ugly. Sebastian was questioning his vocation even before this all happened. We're each about the only friend the other has left, so... when we decided to leave Kirkwall, it just seemed natural to travel together for a while."

Helen nodded. "He seems a nice enough fellow. Very polite. And that accent! That's from somewhere in the north, isn't it?"

"Yes, he's from up in the Free Marches," agreed Cullen, deciding against identifying the place any more exactly than that unless asked. He looked around the room. "Is there anything I could do to help?" he asked.

Helen smiled. "You could set the table I suppose, if you still remember how to do things like that."

Cullen laughed, and rose. "Not a skill that one easily forgets," he said, and was pleased to find the same old plates – a little more chipped, the graze crackling with age – kept in the same place as before in the tall hutch against one wall.

* * *

Supper with Cullen's family had been a noisier affair than Sebastian was used to, though it reminded him of the times he'd spent helping to look after the families of women who were giving birth. The meal had been beans, stewed with duck and chunks of squash and turnips, served with bread and fresh-churned butter, with rhubarb crumble afterwards, still warm from the oven and topped with fresh cream from the family's cow. Mostly they had goats, Devon had explained very seriously, but when a neighbour's heifer had died throwing twin calves several years before, it had been the milk from their goats and careful care by Lorn and Devon that had kept both calves alive, and the farmer had given them one of the pair in payment. They made butter and hard cheeses out of the cow's milk for their own use, drinking the leftover whey or feeding it to their sow, and soft cheese out of their goats' milk, most of which went to market each week.

That was where Lorn had been today; delivering cheese and some vegetables and wild-caught honey to the market in the nearest village, a little hamlet a couple of miles away. He'd been delighted on arriving home to finally meet the Uncle Cullen that his mother and older brother had sometimes spoken of, and Cullen was clearly pleased to meet him as well. The boy looked like a much younger version of Cullen; small wonder that their mother sometimes mistook him for her son instead of grandson.

Sebastian diplomatically withdrew to the loft over one of the sheds after the meal, giving Cullen some private time with his family. By the look of the shed it had once been a house as well, an old fireplace still occupying one end of the downstairs room, though judging by the dust and cobwebs it had been years since it had last seen use. Most of the room was taken up by storage and a small wood-working shop, the tools and dust on the workbench showing that it, too, had not been used in a long time.

The loft had a small window at the back end, glazed in an old style of small panes of thin horn assembled in a frame carved of wood to fit around the little yellowing panels. It let in a dim light, but a little investigation found a catch that allowed it to swing open inwards, letting in fresh air and better light.

The bed was a large straw tick sitting directly on the plank floor, dusty and smelling a little of mouse. Helen had sent Devon out with a pile of fresh bedding for it, at least, and once Sebastian covered the straw tick with a quilted cover and a blanket, it was as comfortable as any bed they'd had since Kirkwall. Certainly far more comfortable than the ship's deck or the ground had been. Or the pallet in his old room in the chantry, for that matter.

He wasn't sure whether to arrange the rest of the bedding like two separate bedrolls on either side of the mattress, or to make it up as one bed. He and Cullen _had_ shared a bed in Highever... but that had been only the one night, and they'd very carefully kept to their separate sides of it, though the way it dipped in toward the centre had meant they'd woken up spooned together, to their mutual embarrassment. After some thought he left the rest of the bedding folded on the bed to sort out later, and settled down on the floor under the small window to read more from his book of poetry.

It was hard to keep his mind on the words. He kept thinking instead of the book Cullen had purchased; the one Varric had written. He was both annoyed and amused that the dwarf had had it printed after all. He should never have told any of those stories anywhere in the dwarf's hearing, despite Isabela's interest, and when she'd shown him the nearly completed manuscript... he should have thrown it in the fire, rather than accepting Varric's word that it wouldn't actually be published. The two of them had never been real friends; it shouldn't surprise him so much that Varric hadn't kept his word. Still, it disappointed him; he'd though better of Varric than that.

He closed his book, keeping one finger in it to mark his place, and found Cullen's blushing face from earlier pictured in his head. A slight smile curved his lips. He did admit, it was a little entertaining seeing the man's reaction to Varric's not entirely fictional writing as he worked his way through the volume. Sebastian been wild in his younger days; he could only be happy that he'd only ever repeated some of the tamer stories of his youth, though Varric's flights of imagination about Octavian had come startling close to real events on occasion.

He found himself thinking how he would have taken Cullen for a complete innocent, if not for what the man had revealed earlier. Trapped by blood mages, haunted by desire demons... his blushes were those of someone with too much unwanted knowledge, not those of someone with too little. Poor bastard, to have all of the shame and none of the real pleasure of it.

He wondered what his younger self would have thought of Cullen. He'd certainly of thought him a handsome man, he decided, especially now that the dark rings under his eyes were fading, the deep lines bracketing his mouth becoming less obvious. Kirkwall might had helped Cullen heal in some ways from his experiences at Kinloch Hold, but Sebastian could see that it hadn't been a good place for the man; not in the long run. Not when he's ended up trapped between doing his duty and doing what was right, between obeying the commander he's admired and stopping the madwoman she'd become.

There was a step on the stair – more of a steep ladder than anything else – and then Cullen came into view, climbing upwards, a lit candle-lantern in one hand. Cullen looked up and met his eyes, and smiled. "I thought it was likely getting rather dark out here by now," he said, and after reaching the loft platform moved to hang the lantern from a hook in the roof beam overhead.

"It is," Sebastian agreed. "I'm surprised to see you here so early."

Cullen shrugged. "Helen and I... it is strange, we know so much about the people we each used to be, so little about who we are now. It felt odd, after a while, especially when mother started telling me all about the son named Cullen she'd once had," he said, and looked away. "Her memories of what I was like are rather different than my own. Kinder, perhaps. Anyway, Helen and I will have plenty of time to get to know each other again in the coming days, if we're staying here through harvest. We can take our time, and wait for the oddness to pass."

Sebastian nodded, and set aside his book. "I wish..." he began, and broken off.

Cullen looked questioningly at him, then nodded slowly. "That you had a like opportunity with your own family? I'm sorry."

"No, don't be," Sebastian said. "It's no fault of yours. Or of my own, either, no matter how much some part of me might wish to believe it was. I did write them a time or three in my first years in Kirkwall. The only time I heard anything back was a very coldly formal letter from my father's secretary, announcing the birth of my oldest brother's first child. Driving home the point that there was no need or place for me in succession, I suppose," he said, and then shrugged. "It is in the past, and not anything that can be changed. And I am happy for you that you have been reunited with your own family. Envious, yes, but that will pass."

Cullen smiled warmly at him. "Thank you," he said. "And thank you also for being willing to stay on here for a while. It will be good to get to know my sister again, and my niece and nephews."

Sebastian smiled back, shrugged. "It is as I said to your sister; we had no real plans anyway. And in truth I think a little time of working in the fields will not harm me. I'll have time to think, to try and decide what I really want to do with my life, now that I have moved on."

Cullen nodded. "As will I. Who knows, maybe I'll even change my mind about marrying and becoming a farmer, though Helen tells me the girl mother had wished me to marry is already married and a mother. Not that I am overly devastated by this news, you understand; our mothers may have been dear friends but she and I did not much care for each other."

Sebastian laughed. "So no arranged marriage for you?"

Cullen flushed, looking momentarily uncomfortable. "In truth I doubt I could make a proper husband for any woman. Not after all else that has already happened to me in my life."

Sebastian sobered. "I know what you mean," he agreed. "After so many years of chastity, of my life being dedicated to Andraste and the Maker, I do not know that I could change my ways a third time, and become a proper husband either."

"Perhaps the two of us will just have to remain bachelors then," Cullen suggested.

"Perhaps," Sebastian agreed, then smiled. "I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what the future holds for both of us."


End file.
